The Children of My Dreams
by Philip S
Summary: BtVS  Dark Angel Crossover: Max finds out that Manticore has its origins with a little-known project called the Initiative. That, and a certain Slayer might have played a role in the creation of her and her siblings.
1. Origins

The Children of My Dreams

Summary: In the year 2019 the genetically engineered supersoldier known as Max finally finds a clue as to her heritage. Seems Manticore, the secret government project that bred her and her siblings, has its roots in a small suburban town called Sunnydale.

Spoilers: The whole Buffy canon is game. This takes place in the middle of Dark Angel's first season, shortly after the episode "The Kidz are Aiight". If you're not familiar with Dark Angel, don't worry. All necessary details will be given. Oh, and nothing that happened in DA's second season is relevant here. I'll be going AU in a big way.

Disclaimer: Buffy and co. belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. Dark Angel belongs to James Cameron and people. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.

Rating: PG-13

#

Part 1: Origins

#

My name is Max. It's the only name I have. Well, not quite. I also have a designation. That's X-5 452, but I've stopped using that ever since I escaped from home, or the closest thing to a home I've ever had.

See, I'm not like most people. Most people have a mom and dad, a childhood that doesn't involve being trained how to kill people, and a certain amount of choice as to what they want to be when they grow up. Me, I never had anything like that. Not even a mom and a dad. I was made, not born. Cooked up in a lab.

I'm what you call a Chimera. Mostly human, but with some parts added that are definitely not human. A bit of cat DNA here, some genetic enhancements there, and out pops a girl that is about ten times as strong, fast, and tough as most normal guys around. Sounds cool so far, right? Well, I haven't told you the rest yet.

I grew up in a training camp that was little better than a prison. From the moment we could walk my siblings and I were trained as soldiers. America's finest, that was what we were supposed to be. The unstoppable soldiers of the new millennium. Better, tougher, and completely expendable, seeing as we have no family that would miss us. And they can always make more of us to replace the ones that have fallen.

As best as I can tell I was born, or made, in late 1999 or early 2000. One of about a hundred X-5 soldiers. I never met an X-1 through 4. Apparently they were early experiments, all failures. We were the first who worked perfectly. Well, almost perfectly. We have some deficiencies, but I'll get to that later.

In 2009 twelve of us escaped from Manticore. We used the training they had given us, scaled the barricades, and vanished into the night. Since that day I've been on the run, trying to stay under Manticore's radar while at the same time trying to find my siblings.

At least the first part got a lot easier thanks to some of the other stuff that went on later that same year. September 11, 2009. Someone told me that the date was picked for some sort of historical significance, but I didn't really give a damn. The only thing I cared about was that my staying underground and vanishing had just gotten a whole lot easier.

What happened was that a group of terrorists got themselves a really big toy. A nuclear bomb. And not just any bomb, mind you. A full-sized ICBM with enough tonnage to turn even the largest and most widespread city in the world into nothing but ash. I remember there was a lot of panic when news of the nuke's disappearance went out. Every city was worried that it might be the target for this hammer of God.

As it turns out the terrorists wanted more than just reduce a single city to glowing rubble. They wanted to stamp out the United States, wipe it away from the ranks of international politics and reduce it to the kind of backwater nation that the US itself had so liked to walk all over time and again.

They succeeded beautifully.

The nuke was detonated about eighty miles over the heartland. The radioactive fall-out pretty much ruined the entire farm belt, leading to a famine a year down the line, but the worst part was the electromagnetic pulse. See, when a nuke detonates on the ground the EMP knocks out every computer or other electronic device within a radius of a hundred miles or so. When you detonate it high above the Earth, though …

It was chaos and mayhem like nothing the world had ever seen before. Computers all over the country (and in some parts of Canada and Mexico, too) crashed and burned out. Within seconds everything was gone. Financial data, military secrets, everything stored on a hard disk became so much random bits and bytes. The United States went from superpower to third world country overnight.

A lot of people died that day. Planes fell from the sky, hospital equipment failed, traffic signals died, the whole country descended into blind panic. This dark day was a godsend for us, though. Finding 12 kids on the run in this kind of mayhem was impossible and we got away clean.

That was then.

Now it's ten years later, 2019, and I'm a fully-grown girl trying to make a living in a world that has turned to shit. The US never recovered from the Pulse. It didn't help, of course, that we had made a lot of enemies in the years before that, basically telling the entire world to go screw themselves. So when we asked them for aid later on we got ... well, not nothing, but you get the picture.

Anyway, I was trying to make a living while at the same time trying to continue staying under the radar. Manticore survived the Pulse, even though I like to think they took as much of a licking as anyone else. I've been staying in Seattle lately and had several close brushes with that bastard Lydecker.

Did I mention Lydecker already? Well, in case I haven't, he is the closest thing we had to a father while in Manticore. Which isn't saying much, believe me. He was our commanding officer and put us through the paces, not caring how much it hurt as long as we turned out strong and willing to follow orders. Well, one out of two isn't that bad, right? We did turn out pretty strong.

To bring this thing to a close, I'm currently working as a bike messenger, which pays shit but has the perks of giving me a sector pass that allows access to the entire city. Most people haven't got that, thanks to the continued state of emergency that has been in force ever since the Pulse. Basically America is a police state nowadays and the cops don't like it when the people move around too much.

Being one of the few who is free to move more or less as I please, I have taken up a second job to bolster my income a little. Some people call it stealing. Me, I call it ... well, okay, I call it stealing, too. I have few moral illusions. To regain some brownie points I'd like to point out that I only steal from those that have something worth stealing. Okay, that's more common sense than some kind of morality, but still, give me a little credit here!

During one of my heists I met this guy. Blonde, blue-eyed, and with a serious case of hero-complex. Logan Cale, heir to one of the biggest fortunes in all of America. When I busted into his apartment late one night I found out that he led a second life. Ever heard of Eyes Only? He's this guy that hacks into the TV channels and shows the people all kinds of truths the cops and government boys really don't want to have shown. He's brought down quite a few corrupt politicians and such in his time. Which made the whole secret identity thing necessary, seeing as a lot of people regard him as a terrorist and want him dead in the worst way.

After some initial problems we struck something of a deal. I'd occasionally help him out with his latest save-the-world-scheme and in return he would help me track down the others. Somehow I always wind up helping him a lot more than I intend, but that's okay. He's got this really sweet smile and some days I think … well, I try not to think about it too much. My life is already complicated enough without adding more complications to it, so we'll stop that thought right there.

So to bring this whole thing to a close, I got a call from Logan that I should look him up. Apparently he found some sort of big thing he wanted to share with me, something concerning Manticore.

That's when this whole weird thing started.

#

"Logan?" Max called out as she entered the apartment. "You around?"

Unsurprisingly she found him squatting before his computers, intently staring at the screen. For someone who'd only recently regained the use of his legs after an accident that should have left him crippled for life he sure spent a lot of time sitting down. Some days Max really couldn't figure Logan out.

"Max, hi! I think I found something you might be interested in."

He had originally promised to help her track down the other eleven children who had escaped from Manticore that night. By now Max knew that they were all safe and sound, something they had made sure of only a few days ago. No, she reminded herself. Not all of them were safe. Brin wasn't. She quickly forced her thoughts away from her lost sister.

Zack, the boy who had been group leader during their time at Manticore, had taken it upon himself to make sure that his fellow escapees remained hidden and safe. He stayed in touch with all of them. Well, all of them except Max, whom he considered too reckless. The nerve of that guy. She had made friends here in Seattle, something she'd never had before, and wasn't about to abandon them all just because Zack regarded attachments of all sorts as a liability.

Just a few days ago she'd thought she finally outsmarted Zack by getting her hands on the contact number he used to stay in touch with all the others, had hoped she'd finally be able to talk to her brothers and sisters again. Only Zack, the efficient bastard, had changed the number even before she managed to call it. So she was right back where she'd started.

"What is it?" she asked, her thoughts returning to the present. "Have you found a way to make something of Zack's number? Contact the others?"

"No, I'm afraid not. It's something else, Max." He brought up several different screens. "I've been devoting some time to finding out more about Manticore. Details about their funding, which government agency they answer to, things like that."

Max nodded. The only way her siblings and her could ever be safe for good was when Manticore was destroyed. Bringing it down by force was next to impossible, seeing as the project still had more than enough loyal X-5 troopers under its thumb, so subterfuge might be their only chance.

"I haven't had much luck until very recently, when I came upon this piece of ancient trivia."

Max squinted her eyes, reading the file he had clicked on. It was dated 1999 and ... what was this shit?

"Apparently Manticore," Logan explained, "started out as a side venture connected to a larger project active at that time. The main project was called the Initiative. I haven't been able to uncover what the Initiative was all about yet, but apparently during its operation they came upon something interesting. Take a look!"

Max speed-read through the file, mumbling along as she did. "First four generations a failure ... unable to incorporate the various genetic enhancements ... adaptable material found, passed all tests ... DNA sequences extracted from subject, perfect for the X-5 generation."

She reached the end of the file, her mouth hanging open.

"Logan, this ..." she began, unable to finish.

"It appears that what the X-1 to X-4s lacked," he spoke softly, "was human DNA capable of surviving the strain of having all these extras crammed into it. They finally found it in a town called Sunnydale, taking it from a girl who was in the hospital there. For some reason the DNA of this girl was ... different. Stronger. They went back to the hospital, extracted ova from her and used for breeding the X-5 generation."

Max shook her head, trying to clear her head. "Logan, what are you telling me?"

He smiled. "I'm telling you I've found your mother, Max!"

Mother? Max felt a little faint. This was bullshit! She didn't have a mother aside from the incubator they had brought her to term in. Her fathers were a bunch of mad scientists who relished in playing god.

"A mother?" she mumbled, unable to even picture the concept.

Logan nodded. "The closest thing you'll ever have to one. It was her cells that gave life to you and your siblings, Max. Her DNA that enabled you to survive having all those enhancements crafted into your genetic make-up."

A mother! Max had big trouble wrapping her mind around that. At least one half of her had come from a real-life person, not some kind of science experiment. A living human being had contributed to making her and not just in the sense of writing a bit of genetic code or pressing a button. It was a concept that boggled her mind.

"Do you ... do you know anything about this ... this girl?" she asked, still trying to bring her racing thoughts back under control. Did the others know? Was this another thing Zack had kept from her? No, not even he would have kept something like that from her and the others. Lydecker must have known. But he wouldn't have told them, of course. It might have taken dedication away from Manticore, might have inspired some feelings of attachment or loyalty that weren't part of the agenda.

A mother! She kept repeating that thought over and over. She had always wondered what it might feel like to have parents. To feel this sort of attachment to someone. To look at someone and know that this person gave life to you in the way nature had intended.

Was she about to find out?

"Quite a bit, actually," Logan said, smiling. "Her name is Faith Wilkins and, even better, she is still alive. I have her address."

He hesitated a moment, looking at her. "If you want it, that is."

Max didn't know how to answer that question.

TO BE CONTINUED


	2. Anniversary

**Author's Note:** I'm making one little change in Angel canon here, as he and his group never took over Wolfram & Hart. The law firm was never restored after the Beast totaled it and Lilah never returned from the dead.

Also, it has been brought to my attention (many thanks to Stoa) that I have apparently made a mistake with Dark Angel canon in saying that Max and her siblings were brought to term in incubators. Apparently they did have real-life mothers, but were separated from them the moment they came to term. I must have missed that episode. Anyway, since this is an AU anyway I take the liberty of changing that piece of canon. Max and her siblings were brought to term in incubators, no mothers involved.

#

Part 2: Anniversary

#

It had become something of a tradition for them, one that they shared with quite a few other people. There probably wasn't a single living person in America today who hadn't lost someone on that terrible day ten years ago. All over the States people came together to mourn their friends and loved ones, to think of all the people who had lost their lives during the Pulse.

It was no different for this group of weary warriors and so they came together from whatever corners of the world they were currently busy in, gathering to remember those they had lost and pray for the strength to carry on in their name.

Faith stood in front of the full-length mirror and studied herself, trying to see the girl she had once been in the tired woman facing her. Thirty-six wasn't exactly retirement age, at least not for a normal person. It had been a long time since she had been anything even remotely normal. And in her line of work she definitely counted as old.

Her sharp hearing had no trouble making out the people arriving downstairs. Had it really been ten years already? Ten years with a gathering such as this every September? She knew she had to go downstairs soon and greet the others. She had never intended it, but she was something of a leader to this group, no matter that she considered herself completely unsuited for the role. Angel and Wes did the best they could, but sometimes only a Slayer would do to lead a group of Slayers into battle. A Slayer such as her.

She glanced over to the desk in the corner of her room, a piece of paper and a pen lying there. It was another tradition of sorts. She didn't know why she had started it, but every year on the anniversary of the Pulse she wrote a letter. A letter that would never be sent anywhere, seeing as those to whom it was addressed were far out of reach of the American mail service, what there was of it these days.

Sighing, she went over and grabbed the pen.

#

_Hi guys!_

_It's been another year already, can you believe it? They say time flies when you have fun, in which case I really can't understand why things seem to be moving so fast. It's been some time since we've had some fun down here, let me tell you that. Well, this isn't supposed to be a moping exercise, so I'll quit that right now._

_To bring you up to date on things, Robin and me are still going strong, thank God for small favors. I honestly don't know whether I could have lasted as long as I have without him. He keeps me from taking myself too seriously and, as he sometimes calls it, helps me reign in my inner bitch. What did I ever do to deserve a guy like that? Don't answer that, I don't want to spoil a good thing!_

_As for the others, well, Angel is Angel. Being immortal and all you can't really expect him to change all that much within the span of a year, or even ten years. He can still brood with the best of them, but sometimes you can see one of those small half-smiles on his face and it's like Christmas. It's strange that he doesn't age, still looks exactly like he did the day I first met him. A girl could grow self-conscious around him. But I'm glad to have him around and don't worry, I'll keep my promise and look out for him just as he looks out for the others and me. We're family. We have each other's backs._

_Wes hasn't changed much, either. When he isn't busy digging through ancient texts and spell-books in the hopes of solving our still-persistent big problem he comes along on patrol. The guy's past fifty now, but he can still kick ass with the best of them. For a human that is. I can see him starting to slow down, though. Twenty years of battling the undead has taken its toll on him and soon he'll have to bow out of the active part of slaying. I just hope he can handle it when the time comes. I hope he doesn't wait too long._

_We're seeing less and less of Gunn these days. LA is one of those cities that weathered the Pulse and its aftermath better than others, but there are still a lot of homeless kids out on the streets and more than enough predators, and not just of the undead kind. We're still working together on cases here in LA, but he doesn't get involved in the national or international stuff anymore. His kids need him, he says, so he stays. I can understand him._

_Speaking of the kids, well, we lost another one since my last letter. Diana died, overwhelmed by a group of vampires in Boston. I should have been with her, seeing as it was in my old stomping grounds, but there was this big demon in Texas and that was the greater threat. We destroyed the demon, but lost Diana. It doesn't really get any easier, no matter how often it happens._

_The rest of the gang is in good shape. Fred has published another paper, big surprise, and it's getting to the point where the cash from her patents is keeping us free of financial problems all by itself, no further work from any of us needed. She says it's the least she can do, seeing as she hasn't got the whole Slayer power going to help us out. She's made great strides with the whole self-confidence thing, but sometimes I still get the impression she'd like nothing better than to go and hide in a cave somewhere. _

_Lorne has redecorated Caritas again, can you believe it? The business is doing great and the amount of gossip going through that place is incredible, has helped us out more times than I can count. Angel has gotten a lot better at the whole singing thing, too. A few nights ago he managed Mandy without anyone bolting from the room or bleeding from the ears. Definite improvement._

_I miss you guys so much. I wish you were here, because half the time I haven't got the slightest idea what I'm doing. I could really use your help. I often wonder how it was that, for so many centuries, a single Slayer managed to keep the world in one piece all by herself. Either the job has gotten harder or the Slayers have gotten weaker. I hope it's the former, but seeing that all us Slayers are well past thirty now I guess it's a bit of the latter, too._

_Don't get any strange ideas about coming back, though, you hear me? No matter how much we miss you guys, you deserve your rest. I have no doubt that each and every single one of you has earned their place in heaven and that's where you're gonna stay, otherwise I'm gonna kick your asses so bad you'll run crying back up to the angels._

_Stay happy, guys! Stay safe!_

_Love,_

_Faith!_

#

Putting the letter into the same drawer were the previous eight letters rested, Faith got up and made her way downstairs to the others. The lobby of the Hyperion was decorated with candles and soft music was coming from hidden speakers. About two dozen people were present, all of them looking up and offering a smile when they saw her arrive.

Faith's eyes made a quick sweep of the room, coming to rest on the photographs put on display on the table in the corner. The pictures of their absent friends. For a long moment she remained standing there on the steps, simply studying the photos. A bit like Angel, she mused, unchanged by time. She'd never see what any of them would look like in their thirties, they were eternally young. Well, except Giles, but he'd always looked pretty spry for his age.

Someone put a hand on her shoulder and she came out of her thoughts to lock eyes with her husband.

"Come on," Robin told her, lightly squeezing her hand. "The others are waiting."

He didn't ask her whether she was okay, which she was eternally thankful for. They knew each other inside out after all this time and, like she had written in her letter, Faith was eternally thankful for his presence. Many people had made an impact on her life. Her first Watcher had shown her that she was worth something. Buffy had shown her how to be a Slayer. Richard Wilkins, whose last name she still carried, had shown her a father's love, no matter how rotten a bastard he might have been in all other ways. Angel had shown her how to redeem herself. But Robin had shown her how to live, how to put the whole Slayer stuff aside for a while and simply be a woman in love with a guy.  

She squeezed his hand in turn and together they walked down the remaining stairs, greeting the others. Not for the first time she marveled at this odd collection of people who had become her friends and family. If not for the fact that all of them - some by chance, some by destiny - had become involved in the battle against evil, she doubted she'd be friends with any of them.

Angel, an Irish womanizer turned sadistic vampire turned brooding hero. Robin, son of a Slayer and retired high school principal. Gunn, a former street kid and gang leader. Wesley, who held little to no resemblance to the wimpy Watcher he had once been. Fred, a science nerd who survived five years in a hell dimension. Lorn, a demon bartender and karaoke singer. Amanda, Rona, Violet, Georgia, Alison, and Maliya, once a group of frightened girls looking to be protected from evil, now all Slayers and kicking evil's ass daily.

There were a few other people there Faith wasn't that close with. Amanda's husband Mike. Violet's best friend Henrietta. A few others. Yet in a way they were all family. And they were all here to mourn those members of their extended family who should have been here today, but weren't.

Angel, as the host, was the first to raise his glass and propose a toast.

"To absent friends," he simply said. "To all the people we'll never forget."

Wesley raised his glass. "Rupert," he said.

Amanda followed next. "Dawn."

"Kennedy," Rona toasted.

"Willow," Fred came next.

"Xander," Faith said, looking at the pictures on the table again.

"Buffy," Angel finished, their glasses now clinking together.

Six people, Faith mused. Six people out of thousands who had died that day. Somehow it wasn't fair that no one remembered them as more than part of a statistic. Just another few unlucky souls who had had the misfortune of being on board a plane when the Pulse hit. They had saved the world so many times, but neither themselves nor anyone else could save them when technology failed and sent them to their doom.

It was almost funny, Faith snickered humorlessly. So many demons had tried to wipe them out and in the end it was humanity's own dark arts, technology, which had killed them. A tear came to her eyes. It wasn't fair. But then, who had ever said that life was fair?

She looked around the circle of her friends and family, especially the six other Slayers present. Seven of them altogether, all that was left of the Slayer lineage, and all of them looking worn out and tired. There wasn't a single face below thirty to be found in the room (except Angel's, that was) and most of them looked (and felt) older than they actually were.

The years since the Pulse had been hard on them all. Vampires and demons had had a field day in the chaos and mayhem following the nation-wide failure of all technology. Amidst the widespread panic and breakdown of civil order no one noticed if people vanished by the hundreds, by the thousands. Entire villages, whole counties were wiped out in a matter of days. The vampire population had quadrupled within a year and a large part of the world's existing demonic population had been drawn here to this beautiful feast of fear and suffering.

The Slayers and the team of Angel Investigations had done all they could to stem the tide of supernatural darkness, even though they had still been shaken by their own losses. How many Slayers had they been back then? Faith wasn't sure, but it must have been around sixty or so. Many of them died within that first year, giving their lives to keep the forces of darkness from taking even more advantage of the upheaval than they already had. So many friends lost.

And none to replace them with.

They had already known by that time, of course. Six years prior to the Pulse they had battled the First Evil and won the greatest victory of their lives, closing the Hellmouth forever. A victory that had only been made possible by the activation of all potential Slayers all over the world. Willow had done the deed, had reached deep into he power of the Slayers and given it to all those who had the potential to wield it. Over a hundred Slayers awoke that day and quite a few of them were on hand to help in the battle.

What they only found out about a year or so later was the price they had to pay for that victory. Yes, she remembered, it had been almost exactly a year later, in fact. The day when a random vampire got lucky and killed one of the Slayers.

And no replacement was called.

Their spell had destroyed the lineage. Unintentionally they had done almost exactly what the First Evil had intended to do. Destroy all the potentials, so there could be no new Slayer. Well, they had done away with all the potentials, too, by calling them. New potentials should have been born later on, ones that could inherit the power when one of the present Slayers died. Only they weren't.

  
Ever since that day in 2003 no new potentials had been born.

And now? Sixteen years later? Seven Slayers were left. Maybe a few more scattered around the world, those they hadn't found or who hadn't been interested in joining the fight against evil. That was it.

Wesley theorized that they had destroyed some kind of balance. That nature was looking to put it right again by preventing new potentials from being born until all but one Slayer were dead and then, only then, would a new potential stand ready to inherit the power of the Slayer. He wasn't certain of that, though. None of them could be certain.

Which meant there was a really good chance that, the moment the last of the current Slayers died, be it in battle or eventually of old age, there would be no more Slayers. The world would be left defenseless.

Ever since that revelation they had researched, tried to find a way out of this predicament. Willow, when she had still been alive, had traveled all over the world, hoping to find a magical way of putting right what she had unintentionally wrought. Giles and Wesley, along with the few other surviving Watchers, had gone through every piece of lore and prophecy ever written down. All for naught.

Once more Faith looked at the tired faces of her fellow Slayers. They were all that was left. The last line of defense this world had. And year after year that line grew smaller. There would always be Angel, of course, an immortal guardian who would do his best to protect the innocents, but in a world such as this he alone simply wasn't enough.

As Faith mingled with the others, as they exchanged stories of their absent friends and remembered all the people they had lost, she did what she always did at these anniversaries. She prayed. Prayed for inspiration. Prayed for strength.

Prayed for a miracle to somehow put things right again.

TO BE CONTINUED


	3. Meet the Family

**Author's Note:** First of all, thanks for the reviews everyone. I'd like to answer everyone individually, but I never find the time and I think you'd rather have me write faster. Correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, thanks for the support.

And once again I have had it pointed out to me (by Black Rose, thank you) that my knowledge of DA canon is limited, as I got the date for the Pulse wrong. I didn't know an exact date had ever been mentioned in the show. Anyway, this is an AU, so September 11 it remains.

By the way, Sadie Joyce, you mentioned Alec and that you'd like to see some Faith/Alec interaction. Since Faith can be considered his mother as well (more or less) I hope you meant that in a non-couple way.  ;-)  Anyway, Alec will probably make an appearance, but not for some time. Remember, at this point in the DA timeline he's still part of Manticore.

Okay, enough foreplay then. On with the show:

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Part 3: Meet the Family

#

Checking her watch, Max figured that she had been standing here on this street corner for about an hour now, fidgeting in indecision. She was not normally one to fidget. If anything she was too impulsive, doing things without thinking them through, running headfirst into trouble and hoping that her transgenic head would be tougher than any walls that might come along.

Right now, though, she was fidgeting.

Logan had asked her whether she wanted the address of her mo..., of the woman who had unwillingly donated her DNA to the X-5 generation. It hadn't taken her long to answer it, despite not having a clue what she really wanted to do. So yes, she took the address. And, in typical Max-fashion, she had told Normal, her boss, that she'd be taking a few days off and (not waiting for him to answer) hopped onto her motorbike and made her way to Los Angeles without allowing much thinking to go on.

Now she stood in front of the address in question and heavy thinking was going on. A lot of heavy thinking and internal arguments that she really could have done without.

What was she doing here? It wasn't like this woman would mean anything to her or vice versa. So they had DNA in common. Big deal! Logan had said that this Faith had been a coma patient at the time, so odds were she didn't even know she had kids. Not to mention that she had about a hundred genetically engineered super soldiers as kids, eleven of whom were currently on the run from the US government.

Yeah, that would go over real well.

Then there was that other voice, though, the one that insisted she should do this. There had to be something special about this woman. Normal human DNA had not survived the Manticore enhancements, but Faith's had. Without her the X-5 would never have gotten off the ground, would have been written off as yet another failed experiment, so there had to be something extraordinary about her. Something that ... Max had no idea what she was hoping to find here. Find some kind of ... what? Raison d'être? Self-definition? Family? 

She scoffed at that last one. She had managed her whole life without any family apart from her siblings, most of whom she hadn't seen in ten years. She certainly didn't need a mo..., she couldn't even make herself think the word. It had been easy when the whole thing had been an abstract, something from an ancient file. It was a whole lot harder now when she was this close to the person to whom that word applied.

Huffing, she took two steps toward the building. This was getting ridiculous. She had nothing to fear here, nothing at all. This was a reconnaissance mission. She was investigating a lead that could possibly tell her more about Manticore, provide some knowledge that might help bring those bastards down. That was the sole reason she was here. Nothing else. She was a soldier, damn it, looking to discover vital info about her enemy.

How was it that pushing aside whatever humanity she might possess never worked the way it had been drilled into her when she actually wanted it to work?

Night had fallen about two hours ago and Los Angeles, while in better shape than Seattle, was a dark and scary place after dark. Scary to other people, that was. For Max the night was no different from the day, except that it provided better cover for her planned insertion. Yes, she had to think about this in soldier's terms, otherwise she'd screw it up. She didn't want to screw this up. She needed to be a professional here.

It was just that her inner soldier's voice always sounded like Lydecker. She hated that voice.

Beating her inner fidgeting over the head and sending it off crying into a corner she approached the building. She could have entered through the front door, of course, but somehow that didn't seem like the best idea in the world. This was potentially hostile territory, she reminded herself. Better to be sneaky. Half a minute later she had scaled the wall and entered through an unsecured window on the second floor.

The place seemed to have started out as some kind of hotel, though that must have been ages ago. It was clean and well kept, but the wallpapers and carpets were faded and a sense of age seemed to hang in the air. Max carefully moved along the wall, straining her enhanced senses to pick up any sign of life. She had seen light from the outside, but only on the bottom floor and in a single first floor window.

A cursory sweep later she judged the second floor empty and slowly made her way down the stairs. Orientation skills had been drilled into her relentlessly as a child, so she had no problem finding the room she had seen lit from the outside. A peek inside revealed a woman, about forty years of age, getting ready for bed. It wasn't Faith Wilkins, that much was apparent at first glance. Looking around the room Max saw bookshelves lined with volumes upon volumes of scientific texts, but interspaced with what she assumed were novels of some kind. This woman seemed to have a liking for monster stories as well as quantum physics.

Watching her movements for a few seconds Max quickly decided that she was not much of a threat. The soldier inside her barked at leaving a potential hostile where she could presumably come at her from behind, but she ignored that voice and snuck away from the door again. Her target had to be downstairs.

From a first floor balcony she could see the lobby, which looked like it had hosted some kind of gathering not too long ago. A lot of burned-down candles, remains of a buffet in the corner, a lot of empty glasses and dirty dishes carelessly left on tables and what had once been the reception desk. She could hear some voices from an office in the far corner, but those were both male voices. Not her target, either.

Concentrating she picked up some muffled sounds coming from somewhere off to the right. A corridor led into the rear wing of the building and, judging by the layout, she guessed it would end up at some kind of ballroom or such. There was little in the way of cover, so Max darted down at her best speed. There was no one there to see her, but even if there had been they would have seen little more than a blur. Finally she reached a large double door and the noises coming from the other side were ones she had no trouble identifying.

Fighting noises.

For a moment she froze, a thousand theories flashing through her mind. Had Lydecker followed her? Had he figured out whom she was looking for and decided to take Faith as bait? Had a gang broken into the building? A burglar? Something very much like panic nearly overwhelmed her for a moment and she took two deep breaths to force it down again. This was getting ridiculous. She knew nothing about this woman. The thought of something happening to her shouldn't be scaring her like this, should it?

Besides, there was but one way to find out what was really going on inside that room. A soldier shouldn't make blind assumptions. A soldier should base her actions on the hard facts available. Barging in through the main doors seemed like a bad idea, so she spent a few seconds looking around and spotted something she hoped was some kind of service entrance. Some way for the waiters and hotel personnel to go about their business without getting in the way of the guests.

A minute and several dark and dusty corridors later she reached another door, small and unobtrusive, and heard the same fighting noises from behind it. Whatever was happening in there, it was still going on. She closed the distance without making a sound and carefully nudged the door open the slightest bit, just enough to take a peek into the room.

It was a ballroom, or at least it had started out as one. There were no tables or chairs, though; instead the largest part of the floor was laid out with training mats. Some gym equipment was set up in the far corner. Max took all that in within the span of a heartbeat, but her eyes were immediately riveted to the women currently practicing on the mats.

There were seven of them, all between the ages of thirty and forty, and they weren't kidding around. This wasn't aerobics, despite the music playing the background. It was full contact sparring without any padding and no one seemed to be pulling any punches. Max could only stare as they moved with the practiced ease of accomplished combatants and went through routines that would have pushed even an X-5 to her limits.

She realized what she had just thought and a moment later her observations confirmed it. The speed of the movements, the obvious strength behind the blows, all well above what was normal. As she watched one of the women moved to evade a blow and her features blurred with the speed. Something very strange was going on here.

A moment later Max stopped thinking as one of the women turned around and allowed her a good look at her face.

It was almost the same face she had seen in Logan's file. The passing of twenty years since the picture had been taken hadn't changed it much, yet at the same time a lot. It wasn't any sort of physical change, or at least not anymore than you'd expect in the difference between a person aged sixteen and one aged thirty-six. It was something else, something in the eyes. 

The teenager in the picture had looked angry, full of loathing for the world at large and herself as well. Max had seen girls like that in Seattle; most of them didn't reach adulthood. The woman she was looking at now was different. There was sadness in those eyes, yet also a certainty of self that Max almost envied. This woman knew exactly who she was, why she was here, and what she had to do.

Most disturbing, of course, was the fact that the eyes of Faith Wilkins looked almost exactly the same as those Max always saw in the mirror.

Her soldier's mind clicked on again and took but a few moments of observation to figure out that the other six women present regarded Faith as an authority figure. It was visible in their body language, the way they looked at her, the way Faith moved among them even in the midst of sparring. She seemed to be the oldest present, but not by much. They moved like a unit, her inner soldier said, and Faith was the unit commander.

Shaking her head, she tried to piece the clues together. Okay, so she had known that there had to be something special about her mo... about Faith. She had expected it to be some kind of genetic anomaly, a DNA mutation that just happened to click with the Manticore enhancements.

Now it appeared as if something much stranger was going on here. These women couldn't be human, or at least no more human than Max herself was. Could they be products of Manticore as well? No, they were too old for that. Maybe prototypes from some kind of Manticore-predecessor? Max didn't know much about natural mutations, but she doubted that nature could produce people with superhuman abilities such as these without some help from humanity along the way.

The file Logan had shown her hadn't said anything about Faith being part of some kind of government project. In fact, it had seemed as if they hadn't had a clue who she was and how her DNA could be as special as it was. There had been nothing on what had happened to Faith later on, though. Maybe she had been recruited after recovering from her coma? Enhanced with the same superhuman abilities as her children? It was certainly a possibility, in which case Max had better make fast tracks out of here. She'd had too many close brushes with Manticore these last few months.

She was still wrestling with herself, the soldier's instinct to fall back and gather more background information warring with her natural curiosity, when the ballroom's doors opened. A man walked in, younger than the women present, dressed all in black. There was something about him, something that made the hairs on Max' neck stand up straight, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"What's up, big guy?" Faith asked, almost causing Max to start. "You up for some Slayer-style sparring?"

The man smiled at her, but it was a subdued smile, one that never quite reached his eyes.

"That kind of sparring usually leaves me hurting for days," he answered. "I might be dead, but I ..."

He paused, leaving Max wondering what he meant by 'dead'. A frown on his face, his eyes moved across the room. Was he ... sniffing? A moment later his eyes settled directly on Max.

"We have a visitor," he announced calmly.

_Now you've done it_, the soldier inside Max scolded.

TO BE CONTINUED 


	4. Generational Gap

**Author's Note:** Well, so far no one has found any canon-mistakes in chapter 3, so here's hoping things will keep getting better. ;-)  Anyway, I've updated my personal homepage to include the first 3 chapters of this story. Those who are familiar with my homepage know I always create title pictures for my stories, so if you want a peek at the one I made up for this story, go visit my homepage (I'd like to include the URL here, but somehow ff.net always messes up the whole chapter when I do that. Check my author's page here at ff.net for the URL) 

And now on with the show!

#

Chapter 4: Generational Gap

#

"That kind of sparring usually leaves me hurting for days," Angel answered. "I might be dead, but I ..."

He stopped and Faith immediately identified the frown on his face. Something had caught his attention, something that had slipped past her Slayer senses, but couldn't escape Angel's nose. Sense of smell was one area where Slayers simply couldn't compete with vampires. One of very few, thankfully. She started looking around, hoping to spot whatever had gotten up his nose.

His eyes locked on a spot and Faith's eyes followed, seeing the service entrance door slightly ajar and the barest glimpse of a face in the shadows behind it. A young, female face.

"We have a visitor," Angel said calmly, but his stance immediately changed in readiness for combat.

A heartbeat later the face was gone and Faith's sharp ears picked up the sound of footsteps quickly receding down the service corridor. Without another word Faith, Rona, and Amanda started moving in the same direction. Angel and the other four went out the main doors just as fast. They knew the layout of this hotel like the backs of their hands. They would cut off their little intruder.

"Vampire?" Rona asked as the three of them sped through the door and down the corridor.

"Don't think so," Faith answered. "No tingling."

"Burglar then?" Amanda chuckled. "Boy did she pick the wrong building tonight."

Faith smiled at that. She lived for the thrill of the hunt, the high of fighting for your life (and that of others, usually) against monsters that made normal people cringe in fear. Sometimes, though, she couldn't quite shake that little naughty part of herself, the one that reveled in being stronger than anyone else around. She was still being hit on a lot (though not quite as often anymore as in her teenage years) and there was a thrill in showing the big wanna-be tough guy looking to score on you just how far out of his league he was.

They wouldn't hurt the intruder (unless she happened to be something other than human after all), but there was nothing to keep them from having a little fun, was there?

She was busy wondering why they hadn't yet managed to catch up with their prey when the sounds of a scuffle reached them from the larger corridor beyond. A moment later the three of them exploded out into the relative open of the lobby and froze for a moment, not quite able to believe what they saw.

Angel, Violet, Georgia, Allison, and Maliya had managed to cut off the intruder, who was currently busy fighting against all four of them.

And holding her own.

Well, not quite. She was taking a lot more damage than she was dishing out and while her movements showed definite signs of combat training, she was clearly fighting more with her heart than her head. Most amazing, though, was her speed and strength. A normal person wouldn't even have seen the likes of Angel or a Slayer coming at her, not to mention block their attacks and lash out with some of her own. This girl did, though.

Rona was about to enter the battle, but Faith held her back. "Hold on for a second! I wanna see what this kid can do."

Faith had no doubt that the others were thinking the same as her. This girl couldn't be human, not normal human anyway. She couldn't be a vampire, either, as none of them had gotten that characteristic tingling in their belly. She could presumably be some other form of demon, but in all her years as the Slayer Faith had never seen a demonic species capable of this kind of damage while retaining a human form.

Which left a possibility she wasn't quite prepared to consider yet. Diana had died a few months ago. Was it possible ...? No, not yet! No getting her own hopes up just yet!

Apparently Angel's thoughts closely mirrored her own, for the brooding vampire had quietly retreated from the fight, now observing instead. He had positioned himself right in front of the main doors, just in case their mysterious visitor tried to make a break for it, but apart from that he might as well have been watching a golf tournament.

Leisurely strolling over, Faith stood next to him.

"So what's your take, big guy?" she asked. Angel had nearly three centuries of experience in measuring people at a glance. It was not a skill he was proud of, having picked it up during his sadistic psycho killer years, but it did have its uses. Especially when faced with a complete unknown such as this girl.

"She's human," he answered, his dark eyes remaining on the subject of their little conversation. "There is something extra about her, though. Not sure what it is yet."

"You don't think ...?" Faith left the sentence unfinished.

Angel shook his head. "She doesn't feel like a Slayer, no."

Taking a deep breath, Faith squashed that little ember of hope that had flared up inside her despite her best intentions. It would have been too good to be true.

"What about the physical stuff?" she continued asking.

"Her strength is formidable, if not quite up to yours or that of the others. She's a fraction faster, though. Her basic combat style seems to be military, special operations kind, but with a lot of self-taught stuff added to it."

Faith put her attention back where it belonged, just in time to see the kid starting to go under. No matter her strength and speed, she was up against four experienced Slayers and that was too much for anything short of a Hellgod to handle. 

"Okay, let's call a break here," Faith said loudly, causing her four sister Slayers to back off. They knew each other well enough not to need any words, each of them picking a strategic position that left their little intruder completely surrounded and without a single avenue of escape.

The girl in question was still on her feet, but one arm was cradling her side where Faith guessed a rib was broken. Blood was trickling from a split lip and her jaw was already beginning to swell. For all that, though, there was a look of spite and defiance in her brown eyes, one that Faith knew only too well. It said, "I don't care who you are, no one can kick my ass". Faith had had the exact same look in her eyes during her first few years as the Slayer.

"Remind you of someone?" Angel asked, a half-smile on his face.

"Shut up!"

Faith had learned better since her days of youth. No matter how strong and tough you were, there were always some who'd kick your ass and make it look easy. Whether they were cloven-handed vampires, giant rocky beasts, or super-powered preacher-types. It was a lesson Faith had learned the hard way. A lesson this girl apparently still needed to be taught.

Faith grinned. She loved teaching that kind of lesson.

"There's one thing you gotta ask yourself, kid," she said, moving towards the girl with a cocky sway of her hips. "Do I feel lucky?"

She stopped only when they were within arm's reach of each other. "Do you?"

The girl didn't say anything, but instead lashed out with blinding speed. Faith blocked it on reflex, the strength behind the blow surprising, but nothing she couldn't handle. 

"I guess you do," she grinned.

The girl attacked again, exploding into a flurry of kicks and punches. Faith blocked each and every one of them without ever losing her grin or going on the offensive herself. The girl was already worn out from fighting four of her sister Slayers, she couldn't have too much left. You'd never know it from the way she tore away at her opponent, though. This girl really needed to be taken down a peck or two, Faith mused.

"The way I see it," Faith began in a casual tone while keeping up her defense, "you didn't really know what you were getting yourself into here, kid. Which leads me to think that you're either some kind of burglar whose having a really bad night, or someone sent you here without giving you the full lowdown on who exactly you were being sent after."

At the end of the sentence she pushed the girl's latest punch aside and, noting her opponent was slowing down a lot, gave her a hard shove directly to the chest, sending her down on her tailbone with an audible thud.

"Tell me if I'm getting warm here."

"Bitch!" As expected the girl surged back up, now clearly enraged and not thinking clearly anymore. Faith knew the type. She'd been the type. 

The fight, such as it was, lasted about three more minutes. By then the girl was worn out and could barely stand, even though Faith had hit her all of two times. Mostly she had worn herself out trying to score a hit on the older woman.

"Let's wrap this up, shall we?" Faith said, now moving in for the kill.

Five seconds later it was over. The girl was flat on her back, being held down by Faith's boot pressing down on her throat. She was still moving, there was still fight left in her, but not enough to make much of a difference anymore. Faith couldn't help something of an appreciative smile. This girl was good. If she hadn't been roughed up by the others and had a few more years of experience under her belt she might have been able to give as good as she got, maybe more.

As things stood, though...

"Now, I realize I haven't really asked you these questions before, but I think it was somewhat implied by my kicking your ass. Who the fuck are you and what are you doing here?"

For a long minute the girl simply glowered up at her and Faith was about to start telling her about Angel and his two centuries of torture experience, but something unexpected happened instead. The girl suddenly broke into a smile.

"Is this the way you welcome all your long-lost daughters, mom?"

Stunned silence filled the room.

TO BE CONTINUED


	5. Mommy Dearest

**Author's Note**: Another small note on canon discrepancies: Max mentioned that Faith and she have the same eyes. Well, Karen Murray (thanks for the Review, Karen) reminded me that Lydecker said (in the episode 'And Jesus Brought a Casserole', I believe) that Max has his late wife's eyes. Seeing as that episode is still in the future at this point in the story (and will never happen, since this is an AU) and Lydecker was deep into a manic depression at that point I take the liberty of disregarding his comment. I played with the thought of him and Faith having some sort of shared past for a moment, but I think that would be taking adherence to detail a little bit too far.

Also, Jane Silver, I think you're referring to Max and her siblings blowing up Manticore at the end of Season 1 and torching it to the ground at the beginning of Season 2. I don' think there was any blowing up involved in their initial escape back when they were kids. Correct me if I'm wrong.

As for those who've complained about Max getting her ass kicked, look for Max to give something back in this chapter. Remember, though, she is facing superior numbers, all of them as strong as herself if not stronger, and with more experience. Not having her get her ass kicked would have been unrealistic, in my opinion.

And now, on with the show:

#

Part 5: Mommy Dearest

#

This, Max mused, had to be one particularly fucked-up nightmare. What were the odds that, after years of thinking the closest thing she had to a mother was a test tube, she would not only find the real thing, but that the real thing would also be more than capable of kicking her ass but good? Was this what normal children had to put up with? Probably not. God forbid anything in her life should ever be normal.

How many times had Zack scolded her for her recklessness? He'd have a field day now, that much was for sure. She should have listened to her inner soldier and got out while the getting was good. Instead she suddenly found herself beset upon by no less than four women with strength and speed equal to if not greater than her own, while more of the same were waiting in the wings.

Max was not completely stupid, current appearance to the contrary. All through the rather one-sided fight she'd tried to spot some way out of this madhouse. Unfortunately the residents seemed to know what they were doing, covering all the exits while her mo..., the woman who..., fuck it! She'd just called the woman 'mom' to her face, she might as well think it! Her mother had kicked her ass!

Telling her the truth had seemed like a good idea at the time.

It was a strategy her inner soldier somewhat agreed with. If all other options failed, confusing your enemy was a viable option. And if one could confuse them with the truth and find out how much of it she might have known in the process? All the better.

The look on her face (Mother? Faith? What to call her? Stick with Faith for the moment!) told Max one thing: Faith had no idea what she was talking about. It read something along the lines of 'what's this bullshit?'

By now Max was almost convinced that these people had nothing to do with Manticore. For one thing none of them had barcodes on the backs of their necks, she had checked during the fight. And while that alone might not have been absolute proof, their fighting styles showed no trace of the militaristic precision Lydecker had drilled into all of them. 

The women were all using a style that seemed cobbled together from just about any fighting technique Max had ever heard of and the guy ... she couldn't make sense of the guy at all. His movements ... they seemed unnatural somehow. As if he wasn't so much as moving as being pulled along by invisible strings, almost like a cheap special effect in some old TV program. She'd never seen anyone move like that.

But what else could they be except transgenics? Well, she might find out if they didn't kill her within the next few minutes.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Faith snarled at her, clearly not amused.

From the corner of her eyes Max saw that several more people had been drawn to the lobby by the commotion. The brunette woman she had seen upstairs, as well as two men, one white and wearing glasses, the other a black man clutching ... a sword? Why would he bring a sword? Well, he did look like he knew how to use it.

Increasing pressure on her windpipe brought Max' attention back to the matter at hand.

"Just what I said," she forced out between clenched teeth, her air supply dwindling. "I was hoping for a hug or something, not an ass-kicking for staying out twenty years past my curfew."

The weight pressing down on her throat fell away, but before she could draw more than a cursory breath she was wrenched back to her feet and, a moment later, found herself slammed face-first into the nearest wall, her right arm twisted painfully behind her back.

"Maybe you think this is funny," Faith growled into her ear. "Now let's try this once again. Who the fuck are you?"

Max had quite enough of being pushed around by these people, even if one of them was ... might be ... whatever. So she snapped back her head, a satisfying crunch telling her that she'd hit and broken Faith's nose. The hold on her lessened and she pushed back with all her remaining strength, gaining her freedom.

For all the good it did her. Turning around, she found herself standing with her back to the wall and surrounded by quite a few angry, super-powered people. The angriest of whom stood right in front of her, blood streaming from her broken nose, her eyes blazing with rage. Apparently Faith didn't think this was amusing anymore. Tough shit!

"My name is Max," she quickly said, her inner soldier telling her that she should avoid another brawl she couldn't win. Sometimes she did listen to reason. "I'm from Seattle and, hard as it may be to believe, I'm your daughter, Faith."

Okay, somehow she never quite hit the right tone for these diplomatic exchanges. She really had to do something about that attitude of hers. It didn't pay to be cocky when you'd just gotten your ass thoroughly kicked.

"Right," Faith sneered, wiping some of the blood off her face. "I always wondered what might have happened to that little bundle I gave birth to back in the day. Oh no, wait! I didn't. Because I was never even pregnant. Think up a better story, kid, while you still have the time!"

Time seemed to be running out, judging by the look on her face.

"Twenty years ago you spent some time in the hospital, remember?" Max said, unable to keep the slight grin off her face when Faith's eyes widened in surprise. "I guess no one told you that, while you were sawing wood in coma-land, someone came by and took a few eggs out of your basket."

Faith made a step forward, looking as if she was about to rip Max' head off, but suddenly the young guy in black was there, putting a hand on her shoulder. Max still couldn't quite figure out what was so strange about him, but something was definitely off. That didn't stop him from looking quite tasty, though.

"Maybe she should hear her out," he said in a calm voice.

"Listen to more bullshit?" Faith snapped at him. "No, thank you! I've had quite enough of this. Daughter my ass!"

"I suggest you elaborate a bit more," the guy with the glasses said, brushing a hand through his gray-streaked hair. "I fear there are some short tempers present in this room."

British, Max noted. Definitely British.

"Look," she began. "I don't know about you people, but I guess we all know that none of us here exactly falls into the fully human category."

"Some of us do," the brunette woman said in a low voice.

"Twenty years ago," she went on, ignoring the comment, "a couple of guys wanted to play mad scientist and create the perfect soldier. At first they called themselves the Initiative or something, then ..."

"The Initiative?" the glasses guy asked.

"Those idiots that built that Frankenstein-wannabe Adam?" Faith looked at him, apparently knowing something as well.

Glasses guy must have seen the puzzled look on Max' face and apparently decided to have a bit of mercy on her.

"Some associates of ours encountered the Initiative about two decades ago. From what I heard it wasn't exactly pleasant."

"Hard to imagine," Max said sarcastically. "I don't know much about this Initiative thing, but some side project of theirs became Manticore, a little breeding ground for enhanced humans. They spliced some genes, added in some enhancements, and nine months later out popped some pretty abnormal toddlers."

Faith still looked pissed, but the others had a somewhat thoughtful look on their faces.

"Given what Buffy told me about these scientists," the guy in black said, "I don't have much trouble believing that they might have dabbled in something like that."

Max briefly wondered who Buffy was, but decided that she wasn't in the right position to ask too many questions here.

"So what?" Faith asked. "You were grown in a test tube? What has that got to do with me?"

"Didn't you listen earlier?" Max bitched back. "While you were sleeping the sleep of the brain-damaged the scientists discovered that you were the perfect donor for their little science project. They took DNA and ova from you to add to their soup."

"Fascinating," the glasses guy said. Max really needed to learn some names around here, referring to them as 'guy in black' and 'glasses guy' was getting real old real quick.

"This is bullshit," Faith said, turning away in a huff. "You're telling me some scientists stole some skin scrapings from me and now I have a daughter? Yeah, right! Try another one, kid! I'm not buying that one."

"Maybe you'd like to know that I'm not an only child?" Max asked amusedly.

Faith glowered at her.

"I don't know about the rest," the brunette woman quickly intervened, "but at least one aspect of her story should be relatively easy to check."

"Fred?" Well, at least she had one name now. What kind of name was 'Fred' for a woman? Well, 'Max' wasn't exactly brimming with femininity, either.

"I have all the equipment necessary for a DNA test right here at the hotel. It shouldn't take more than an hour to find out whether or not she really is Faith's daughter."

Max shrugged. "Fine by me." Some part of her was deeply disturbed that, after sharing so many details of her life with these strangers, she was now also volunteering to give them a sample of her DNA. It went against everything her ten years on the run had taught her. She was in too deep now to pull back, though, so she might as well go all the way.

"Faith?" the guy in black asked her.

After some additional glowering Faith finally nodded. "Okay, let's get this nonsense over with. Maybe then you people'll finally let me beat the truth out of her."

#

It didn't take an hour. Fifty-three minutes later Fred came back from wherever she might have set up a laboratory in this huge building and announced the result of the test. Max wasn't surprised. Everyone else was.

"I don't believe this," Faith growled under her breath, but Max had a feeling the rage brimming in her voice was no longer directed at her.

"Faith ..." The black guy, whose name Max had learned was Robin, tried to calm her down. She would have none of it, though.

"Those fucking bastards," Faith yelled, kicking a nearby lounge chair hard enough to split it in two. "Get their jollies cutting up a coma patient, do they?"

She turned on Max and the young transgenic almost took a step back looking at the fury in those familiar eyes.

"Where are they? Where are these bastards holed up? I'll tear off their balls for this!"

"I know where they are," Max said, trying her best to sound calming. It wasn't something she had a lot of practice doing. Normally people tried to calm her, not the other way around. "But you can't simply walk in there, believe me!"

"And why the hell not?" Faith yelled at her.

"Because they have half the goddamned military of the US stationed there, not to mention about a hundred more like me."

This took the wind out of Faith's sails but good.

"A hundred more?" she asked, her voice almost a whisper. "And all of them are..."

Max nodded. Closing her eyes, Faith took a deep, shuddering breath and seemed to deflate. "A hundred more," she repeated. "A hundred more."

Robin walked up to her and this time she didn't resist him when he drew her into a hug. Max had seen the wedding bands they both wore and couldn't help but imagine what might happen if she called Robin 'daddy'. She didn't, though. Who said she was too reckless?

Glasses guy, who she now knew was called Wesley, stepped past the somber couple and approached Max.

"I would think the best thing would be for all of us to sit down and talk some more. There are a lot more things we need to know about you and this Manticore project. And I imagine there are quite a few things you would like to know about us, as well."

"No kidding."

He motioned toward his office.

TO BE CONTINUED


	6. Daddies, Aunties, Undead Uncles

**Author's Note**: Jane Silver wrote a review (thank you for that) and mentioned that she'd find it more logical if only the twelve escapees were Faith's children. Sorry, but I don't quite follow that. From all we've seen the sole difference between Max' group compared to the other X-5s were that they gave each other names. At least one of their group died, though, before they escaped (the death prompted their escape, I believe) and at least one more decided to remain behind. So a line would be pretty tough to draw there. In my story all X-5 come from the same stock, meaning Faith is mommy to them all (more or less) and no fancy tattoos or special DNA for Max, either.

Karen Murray (also thanks for the review) wrote something about two groups of forty and one group of twenty. Sorry, but I'm not sure where these numbers come from. Was it said at some point that Max' group numbered twenty originally? Anyway, the clones and X-7s will make an appearance in this story, never fear, and we'll learn how they are connected to Faith, if at all. Btw, does anyone know if X-6 were ever mentioned? I think those bat-enhanced kids at the beginning of Season 2 were X-8, right? Maybe they threw out the X-6 batch, what do I know.

Oh, and Tutu? There will be a Max-Robin scene soon. Will she call him daddy? You'll just have to wait and see. Wouldn't want to spoil the suspense for you.

Many thanks to everyone who wrote reviews so far. I know I'm not answering all of them, but I do appreciate every single one. It's good for the soul to know so many people are reading this and waiting for updates. Thanks again!

And now, on with the show!

#

Part 6: Daddies, Aunties, Undead Uncles

#

Wesley took a moment to look over the scribbled results Fred had given him on the DNA comparison between Faith and this Max girl. They were related, there was no doubt about that, but Max' DNA had been modified in numerous strange ways. Neither Fred nor he himself had ever seen anything like it before. Then again, neither of them were geneticists.

He wondered whether this Manticore project, like the Initiative, dabbled in the supernatural as well as the scientific. He had never personally encountered the creature known as Adam, but from everything Giles and Buffy had told him it had been an unholy amalgam of human and demonic parts. Consciously or not, its creators had to have poured a lot of magic into its creation, otherwise something like it would never have been able to come to life.

"I hope you can forgive us for the way we welcomed you here," he began, looking at the girl sitting across from his desk. "I'm afraid most people breaking into our building have rather ill intentions."

"Well," she shrugged. "Your burglar alarm sucks, but your security personnel more than makes up for that." One hand massaged her swelling jaw.

"Burglars haven't been much of a problem before," he admitted. "We deal more with the likes of murderers and assassins."

"What kind of setup is this here?" Max asked, the question no doubt having been on her mind for a while. "Don't tell me you're another one those safe-the-world-type guys."

"I am not sure how many such guys you have encountered, but that is generally a fitting way to describe ourselves, I believe. May I ask whether you've been thinking about any particular guy just now?"

She was obviously having an internal debate on how much to tell him when the door opened and Angel walked in, his face unreadable.

"Faith and Robin will be along shortly," he said, his eyes settling on Max. "Faith just needs to wrap her mind around some things. Let's give her a few minutes!"

"Certainly," Wesley said. "I believe some introductions are overdue. Max, this is Angel. He and ... your mother have been friends for a long time."

After a moment's hesitation Max stuck out her hand and Angel shook it. Wesley could see the wheels turning behind the girl's forehead. She obviously sensed that something was strange about Angel, but had no clue what that might be. It would be interesting to see how she reacted to the truth.

Angel, in turn, was his usual stoic self, but there was a certain glint in his eyes that Wesley couldn't quite make sense of yet.

"To answer your earlier question," Wesley continued, brushing over the fact that Max hadn't answered his question yet, "we are a group that deals with ... things that don't appear on the radar of the authorities. Things that threaten the safety of innocents. Officially we are a detective agency and we do occasionally take mundane cases, but only to keep our cover intact."

"I think I know a guy like you," Max mused. "Always gets into more trouble that it's worth. You seem to have been doing this for a while, though."

"Quite a while, yes," Wesley said, giving Angel an amused glance.

"And how did you all pick up superpowers?" Max looked at Angel with a glint of suspicion in her eyes. "You're not Manticore. Grown in a jar as well?"

"Not as such," Angel said, giving her a half-smile. "Faith and the others are ... special. Blessed, or maybe cursed, with strength and skills far beyond normal people. It has nothing to do with any mad scientists or secret government projects."

"What about yourself? You looked pretty superhuman out there, too."

"I've been around for a while."

Max looked back at Wesley. "Is he always doing the cryptic routine?"

"Angel likes to cultivate a certain air," Wesley answered, smiling.

"I don't 'cultivate'," Angel interjected with a bit of a huff.

"Not that I want to break up this sparkling exchange," Faith said from the door, "but don't you guys think we have more serious issues to work through?"

Faith and Robin took a seat and all eyes settled on Max, who gave a bit of a glare at their blatant staring.

"I was just starting to fill in Max on who we are," Wesley said.

"Yeah, but you haven't really said much yet. Telling me that Faith and those other super-chicks are 'special' isn't really answering any questions, you know?"

Faith turned to look at Angel. "Given her the face yet?"

"We haven't gotten quite that far."

"The face?" Max asked, confused.

"Okay," Faith sighed. "I want to get this over with quickly, so I'll take over for the boys here. No offense, guys, but if I wait for either of you to get around to the gist of things I'll be old and gray." She turned to look at Max. "The gist is, kiddo, there are a lot of bad things in the world. Things people don't believe in, but they're real nevertheless. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies, demons, monsters, it's all there and none of it is particularly nice."

Max opened her mouth, but Faith cut her off before she could utter the disbelieving snort that Wesley suspected was imminent.

"And since ordinary people are pretty easy prey for these kinds of bad guys someone decided to play a little balancing game. They created the Slayer, one girl in all the world with the power to kick serious demon ass. You with me so far?"

Max opened her mouth again, but Faith didn't wait before continuing. "About twenty years ago things got really bad and we decided one girl wasn't going to cut it anymore. We worked a little mojo, probably offended about a dozen gods, and spread the ass-kicking power around. Since that day there have been many Slayers. I'm one of them, the gals out there are the others. We've been busting demon butt for the last twenty years or so and have no intention of stopping anytime soon."

Looking at Angel, she added, "Did I forget anything?"

"You covered the important facts."

For a long minute Max looked at all of them, apparently waiting for any of them to cry "just kidding" or something similar. When no one did she leaned back in a huff.

"Okay, so you're ... what? Chosen by destiny to protect the world from evil? Right! Tell me another one!"

Angel raised an eyebrow and Wesley suppressed a chuckle. Her tone was remarkably similar to the one Faith had used earlier when confronted with the knowledge that Max was her daughter.

"I think we need the face, big guy," Faith told Angel, oblivious to the similarities between Max and her.

With a shrug Angel looked at Max until he was sure he had her attention, then began to change. His facial features shifted, ridges growing on his forehead, his eyes turning liquid amber, fangs lengthening in his mouth. A slight growl emerged and the combined package was enough to make Max shoot out of her seat.

"What the fuck...?"

"Meet your first vampire," Faith said with a smug grin. "But no staking him, okay? Angel is the exception to the rule, the white sheep of the family so to speak."

The girl needed a few seconds to compose herself. "I bet that trick goes great at parties," she said, but the humor fell somewhat flat.

"If you want to check," Wesley said, "you'll also note that Angel has no pulse, does not breathe unless when he needs the air in order to speak, and has a skin temperature that is, at best, about twenty-three degrees centigrade. Room temperature, I believe."

Max still stared at him, disbelief in her eyes, when Angel's face returned to its human features. He offered her his wrist and, after a second of incomprehension, Max felt for a pulse. There was none to be found.

"So you're a walking corpse?" she asked.

"Something like that. Vampires are dead human bodies animated by a demonic entity. In my case this entity is paired with a human soul, making me more or less the man I was when I was alive. All other vampires, they are pure demons. They might look human, but they're not."

"And you're sure you're not some kind of government experiment?"

Faith chuckled, a bit of humor creeping back into her voice. "Maybe a trip to the graveyard is in order. Nothing like seeing a vampire explode into dust to get you off the denial trip, kiddo."

She looked at Angel. "What do you say, big guy? I'll make you an honorary uncle and we make our first family trip slaying some vampires. Maybe we can invite some of the 'aunts' outside along."

Angel nodded, grabbing his coat from the chair and throwing Faith a stake from somewhere within its many pockets. Max looked back and forth between them as if they were mad.

"You want to go to a cemetery and stake vampires?" she asked for clarification. When everyone nodded she sighed and looked at Robin. "What about you? Is step-daddy coming along for the family trip?"

The look on Robin's face did a lot to elevate the general mood in the room.

TO BE CONTINUED


	7. Intentions Light and Dark

**Author's Note**: Jane Silver asked whether or not Max' runaway siblings will turn up. The answer is a definite yes. We'll see Zack before too long and the others won't be far behind. How Faith will react to them and vice versa? You'll just have to wait and see.

And to answer another question (this one by BadBoyLover, thanks for the review), Max wasn't infected with the Logan-killing virus until Season 2, so it won't be a factor here. Logan will also turn up before too long and play a role in the story, adding a potential son-in-law to the volatile family situation between Max and Faith. Ought to be fun, don't you think?

And on the little discussion about X-6 and X-7s, I checked the transcripts and according to those the younger clone of Max appearing in season finale of Season 1 and the first episode of Season 2 is X-7, not X-6. Some X-6 and X-8 appear in the second Season 2 episode, but it's never made clear exactly what the difference is between them and the seventh generation, except that the X-8 and most of the X-7 are definitely children while the X-6 appear to be only slightly younger than Max and her siblings, if at all. I'll try and come up with some explanations of my own as to what the exact differences are. Just don't expect any of those ultrasonic-speaking kids to turn up in my story.

And now, on with the show!

#

Chapter 7: Intentions Light and Dark

#

Angel sat in his office and watched through the window to the lobby as Max was throwing something of a fit. They had just returned from taking Faith's daughter (a concept he still had a lot of trouble getting used to) out for her first vampire slaying and the girl was understandably freaked. Not by the violence, no. Angel had the feeling this girl had seen more than her share of violence in her all too short life. He assumed it was more the fact that vampires and demons didn't fit into the world she had been brought up in. Especially if she had spent half her life being brought up in a military environment.

Max had done well during the fight, extremely so. The wounds and bruises received in the earlier fight against the Slayers had almost completely healed by the time they reached the cemetery. According to Max that was because of her designer genes, but Angel believed it might also have something to do with her heritage. He didn't know a thing about genetics, but he refused to believe that having a Slayer for a mother wouldn't have some sort of impact on the girl.

Her fighting skills, her superhuman strength, her healing abilities, it all led Angel's thoughts down a particular road that he couldn't quite get himself away from.

"I assume you are thinking the same thing I am?" Wesley asked from where he was sitting next to Angel.

Angel studied his friend and colleague from the corner of his eyes. Wesley was starting to show his age, both in the lines on his face and the gray streaks in his hair. For Angel it drove home the point that, sooner or later, he would lose the few remaining friends he had to time. Like he had lost so many people before. Willow. Giles. Cordelia. Even that idiot Xander. And Buffy, of course. All gone.

"I am thinking that someone saw fit to drop an opportunity in our laps," Angel said, looking toward the lobby again. "Only I'm not too certain I should be happy about this."

Wesley nodded, understanding exactly what he meant.

"Our remaining Slayers are getting older," the former Watcher mused. "So far that only means they're getting better, but sooner or later..."

"I know," Angel interrupted him, not wanting to hear the end of that sentence. In the last ten years he had seen so many Slayers die, giving their lives to stop the tide of demons that came in the wake of the Pulse. So many had fallen with no one there to replace them.

"Max lacks a Slayer's mystical senses," Angel mused, "but apart from that..."

"I believe she can compensate for that. Her eyesight is clearly better than that of Faith and the others. Something about feline genes, I believe she said. And she did notice that there was something odd about you the minute she laid eyes on you, remember? I believe with a little honing she'll be able to pick a vampire out of a crowd without any problems."

"And there's a hundred more like her out there."

The two men fell into silence, considering the implications of their words.

"Would we be any different?" Angel asked finally.

"What do you mean?"

"Max and those other kids, they were bred to be soldiers. No, less than that. Weapons. Disposable, endlessly replicable weapons. No one cared what they might want out of life. They were meant to follow orders, kill, and finally die in the line of duty. Just like Slayers."

Angel turned to look at Wesley. "If I know Faith she will want to help those kids, free them from Manticore. And I agree that is something we have to do, if for no other reason than it's the right thing to do. But what then, Wesley? Do we try and recruit these kids for yet another war? One in which they'll be asked to sacrifice their lives as well? Do we take over those Manticore machines to breed ourselves more of them when we run out of Slayers?"

Wesley sighed deeply, leaning back in his chair. "Back when I was still a member of the Watchers Council I would have said yes in a heartbeat. These kids are too valuable a resource not to exploit for the good fight. But the Council is gone, Angel, and I'm not the man I was."

"So you say we shouldn't do it?"

"No, I say we should ask them. Angel, in the days of the Council Slayers weren't asked, they were told. Those days came to an end when the Council died and all the Slayers were activated. You know as well as I do that not all of them joined the good fight. All those who fought with us, all those who gave their lives, they did so out of their own free will. Because they felt it was the right thing to do."

Angel nodded, but somehow the argument didn't quite reach his heart. So many of these girls had bravely accepted their destiny and joined the fight, but had any of them really known what they were getting into? All the potentials who had been in Sunnydale to combat the First Evil had gone there for protection. They had entered the fight purely out of self-preservation. But what about all the others? The ones who had been activated around the world and had never known a thing about vampires until Buffy, Faith, and the others had found and told them? Had they realized at the time they were signing up for a short, violent life? He doubted it.

"Max now knows what we are doing here," Wesley told him. "She has seen it first-hand. Now, I might be biased in my evaluation of her because of who her mother is, but I think this girl has a strongly developed sense of responsibility. One she is trying her best to suppress, but still. I believe we owe it both to ourselves and all those who gave their lives for the cause to at least make the offer to join us. If she refuses, she refuses. But we have to at least try."

#

Max stormed out of the lobby, Faith looking after her with a strange mixture of amusement and sadness on her face. Robin, who had watched the exchange silently, came over and wrapped his arms around her waist.

"Give her a little time," he whispered to her. "It's not every day you find out that your mother is a supernatural warrior who saves the world every odd week."

"You found out and you turned out all right."

Robin chuckled. "Thank you. But seeing as I was only a few years old when my mother told me about her being the Slayer I had a lot of time to get used to it." His voice grew more serious. "And I also wasn't raised in a military installation where they taught me to kill with my bare hands before I could walk."

He could feel his wife shuddering where she rested in his arms.

"What they did to those kids," she whispered, "it's monstrous. It's worse than the Watchers. At least they didn't breed their Slayers, they just took them away from their families at an early age."

"The Watchers also had a sacred mission to protect the world from evil," Robin reminded her. "One can certainly condemn their methods, but some would argue that their ends justified their means."

"The same bastards would argue that America breeding supersoldiers to keep itself safe from all those foreign terrorist and dictators out to destroy it is a means justified by the ends."

"Probably."

Faith turned in his arms, looking at his face.

"I don't think I know how to handle this, Robin. I just learned that some bastards took cells from me and bred a hundred or more kids with them. I have just met my daughter, or one of my daughters, and what's the first thing I do? I take her out fighting vampires." 

She rested her head on his chest, feeling incredibly tired. "When my Watcher first found me and told me the whole Slayer-shtick it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I loved being the Slayer. I still do. I just think that, that other people shouldn't be drawn into all this madness, especially if they've already been through so much hell."

Robin smiled down at her, brushing his fingers through her thick hair.

"Max came here to find her mother, Faith. And I believe she also came here looking for help, to find some clue or information that might help her bring down Manticore. Why don't we deal with that for now and see where things lead us afterwards?"

She looked up to smile at him in turn. "You're a smart guy, aren't you?"

"I believe I fill the role of the level-headed one in this marriage, yes."

She gave him a mock slap to the arm, but made no move to separate from him. After a moment her face grew serious again.

"We have to free those kids, Robin," she told him. "Not because they're my kids, but because no children should have a life like that."

He nodded.

"I think Angel and Wesley are already deep in planning-mode." He motioned toward the darkened office the two men had disappeared in not too long ago. "It's late. Or early, rather. Why don't we catch some sleep?"

"In a minute," Faith said. "I'd like to ... you know ..."

Robin saw her looking at the door Max had stormed out of and nodded. "Go talk to her. I'll be upstairs."

"I love you, you know that?"

He brushed a kiss on her lips. "I guess I'm just a lucky guy."

#

There were only about two dozen people in all of Washington who had ever heard the name 'Manticore'. Many of those knew only that it was a top-secret military project and that the special units from said project had successfully performed quite a few difficult operations in the last few years. That was all they needed to know.

Those that knew more, who knew what Manticore really was, were sparse indeed.

Doctor Elizabeth Renfro leafed through the latest report from Colonel Donald Lydecker and the grim look on her face spoke volumes regarding her thoughts on the matter. Ten years, she mused darkly. Ten years and how many of the twelve escapees had that idiot managed to recover? One. Just one. And even that one only because her fellow escapees had delivered her to him on a silver platter to stop her from dying of cell degeneration.

This wouldn't do, she mused. This definitely wouldn't do.

"I hear the Committee has reached a decision," a voice behind her said. "The fugitive X-5 will be hunted down and killed."

Renfro turned to look at the man who had just entered her office. He wore a dark suit, red shirt, black tie, and moved with the grace of a predator.

"Well, the Council will be quite happy about that, won't they?" Renfro asked sarcastically.

"You know their opinions on your project, Dr. Renfro."

Renfro rose to her feet, her eyes narrowing in anger. Most people would have been intimidated by the air of power that surrounded the man in front of her. Some might have noticed that the mirror behind her desk showed no reflection of him and that would have intimidated them even more. Renfro wasn't most people.

"The Manticore project was a necessity," she growled at him.

"Was it?" he asked, his voice filled with dark amusement. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that we have done just fine these last ten years even without your precious kids."

Renfro couldn't quite dispute that argument, seeing as it was perfectly true.

"We have all the time in the world, Dr. Renfro, but quite a few of us think that it's way past due for you to admit that all this was one gigantic waste of resources."

"Have I not correctly foreseen the threat of the Many?" she challenged him.

"Yes, you have. You have lacked to foresee, though, that this would be a blessing for us, not a curse. You have also lacked to create anything that even remotely fulfills the specifications we laid out twenty years back."

"The X-5s were a success."

"The X-5s, Dr. Renfro, are anything but. Just because your human superiors are happy with them does not mean the Council is. You promised us something, doctor, and you haven't delivered."

Renfro glared at him, but intimidation worked no better on him than it did on her.

"The latest generations show signs of improvement," she simply stated.

"Not enough, Dr. Renfro. Not nearly enough. I am not here to argue with you about this, I am here to inform you that the Council has reached a decision."

She looked at him, fearing that she already knew what he was going to say.

"Twenty years ago you convinced us to channel quite a few of our resources, our finances, and our power into this project of yours. The Council now believes it is time to stop wasting all three on something that will never, ever work."

He leaned forward, his eyes gleaming amber as he did.

"We want Manticore gone, Renfro. It's not doing anything for us and might even give the humans an edge, come the day. Get rid of it. Before we are forced to get rid of it ourselves. And you."

He straightened again, his eyes returning to normal, an easy smile slipping onto his face.

"Incidentally," he said, turning toward the door, "you might want to consider making preparations to disappear. I'm certain your human superiors won't be any more pleased with you than we are right now once all this comes to end."

With that he departed, leaving Dr. Renfro alone with her thoughts.

TO BE CONTINUED


	8. Bonding

**Author's Note**: Sorry it's been so long for this chapter, but I've been busy with real life a lot, both at work and socially. A lot's been happening, leaving me with little time for writing. But this week should be a bit calmer and I hope to get a chapter or two done. I'm off on leave in a week, maybe heading to Spain for some sunshine and ocean water.

Just to mention it: It's already over 30 degrees Celsius here in the office by now (9 am) and only going to get worse. So if this chapter might seem a bit strange to you it's because my brain is starting to overheat.

And now, on with the show!

#

Chapter 8: Bonding

#

Max had found a stone bench in the garden behind the Hyperion hotel and was busy trying to get her thoughts under control. She had expected this to be a weird visit. Meeting the mother she never even knew she had? Yes, that was bound to be a strange experience. But this strange? Completely off-the-charts strange? No, she hadn't quite expected that.

Her inner soldier was giving her a lengthy scolding right now, most of it centering on her outburst of about five minutes ago. Coming back from the cemetery where she had just seen a creature right out of a fairy tale book exploding into dust ... it had wound her up pretty tight. And then seeing everyone around her acting so ... normal. They acted like people just coming home from the office, not warriors who had just slain a demon. This wasn't right. It just didn't fit into her world.

_A soldier who doesn't adapt to her surroundings dies_, her inner soldier said. _So the enemy has taken you by surprise. Deal with it! Move on!_

"Easy for you to say," she mumbled under her breath. "I bet Lydecker never expected us kids to fight against vampires."

She shouldn't have gone off like that. It wasn't Faith's fault that her world was such a strange place. From what little she'd been told Slayers didn't have much of a choice in the matter. Someone chose them and sent them off to war against these things. It sounded somewhat familiar to her. Maybe her mother and she had something in common after all. They had both been meant to fight in a war and no one had asked them whether or not they wanted to fight. The only difference was the face of the enemy.

Zack had warned her more than once about her recklessness, about her tendency to follow her heart more than her mind. The logical thing would have been to get out of Seattle the moment Lydecker knew she was there, but she had stayed because of her friends and Logan. The logical thing would have been to kill Lydecker when she had the chance, but other things had taken precedence in her heart and he still lived to hunt her down. The logical thing would have been not to blow up in Faith's face ten minutes ago, but she had done it anyway.

Logic apparently wasn't her strong suit.

"Those look like pretty heavy thoughts," a voice said, causing Max to look up. Faith was approaching her. How had she gotten this close without Max noticing her? Had she been too distracted or did Faith simply move that stealthily? Probably both.

"I'm sorry for blowing up in there," Max said, not meeting her mother's eyes. Apologizing never came easy to her. "It was just ... I guess it was all a little too much."

Faith chuckled and sat down beside her.

"I met my first vampire when I didn't yet know a thing about being the Slayer. I was crashing in a motel, there was this bus of church people the vamps were looking to turn into snacks, and suddenly I had this buzzing in my head. Like an air-raid siren, an alarm calling the soldiers to war. I didn't even have time to think before I threw myself into battle. I killed the vamps, saved the church people, and got arrested by the police."

"Arrested?" Max raised an eyebrow.

"Indecent exposure. I didn't have time to put on clothes before the Slayer siren sent me whirling into action. My first Watcher paid bail for me and went on to explain the whole thing. Didn't believe a word at first, but after everything I had already seen ..."

Max shook her head, trying to suppress a smile.

"How do you deal with it?" she finally asked. "How do you deal with something like this?"

"How do you deal with being on the run from the government?"

"That's different."

"Of course it is. It's different because you've been doing it for ten years while the vampire thing is brand-new to you. Me, I've had over twenty years to get used to it. Now and then I still see things that surprise the hell out of me, too, but most of it's gotten to be pretty routine. Strange thing about people, we can get used to pretty much anything."

Max tried to wrap her mind around that. Faith did have a point. Most people would be pretty shocked to learn that transgenic supersoldiers on the run from the government existed, not to mention worked at a bike messenger service in Seattle and did the occasional job for a save-the-world guy. Was meeting a vampire-slaying woman with superpowers really that much stranger?

Well, considering that said woman was also her mother, yeah! A hell of a lot stranger!

"I don't really know what I expected coming here," Max said after some silence. "I learn that I have a mother somewhere, a real mother, not just a test tube. I wanted to meet this person. I told myself that it was only to get more information about Manticore. Maybe I'd find something that'd help me take them down. Stop them from hunting us. I didn't expect ..."

She looked up, meeting Faith's eyes.

"I didn't expect to meet someone like you."

Now it was Faith's turn to raise an eyebrow. The gesture was eerily identical to Max', though neither of the two women noticed.

"Was that an insult or a compliment?"

"I'm not really sure yet. This is all still too weird for me."

"Welcome to the club," Faith said, looking down at the floor. "I never expected to have kids. Robin and I talked about it a couple of times, but ... at first we figured it was too dangerous. Our line of work, the many enemies we made, it would have been madness to bring a child into this, so we decided to wait.

"About a year or so prior to the Pulse things had finally calmed down a bit. There were Slayers everywhere; the demon population was under control. So we tried. It didn't work, though. And we learned it never would."

Max gave her a questioning look.

"It's the Slayer thing," Faith said with a sad look on her face. "Seems like our super-healing powers are designed to keep us in fighting shape no matter what. A pregnant Slayer can't fight. So our immune system ... I miscarried twice. Never got past the third month. Some of the other Slayers tried, too. Same result."

"I'm sorry," Max mumbled, not really certain how to deal with something like this. Emotional scenes weren't her forte.

"When you first came here, claiming to be my daughter ... I was so pissed. It was like ... like someone was making fun of me. Hey, you super-Slayer, you! Can slay demons, but can't have a kid. Let's rub it in her face a bit, shall we?"

Max said nothing. What was there to say?

Faith gave her a slight smile. "I can see it, you know? A little bit here, a little bit there. Or maybe I'm just imagining it."

"What?"

"The resemblance. It's there. Or maybe not. I'm not really sure."

Max again said nothing. If she was honest with herself then yes, there were some points of resemblance between Faith and her, but she doubted they meant anything. She had about a hundred siblings (that she knew of. God alone knew how many more Manticore had created since she had fled from there) and most of them looked nothing alike.

Faith's hand came to rest on her shoulder. Max almost squirmed away, but squashed that impulse at the last moment. Was it weird being touched this way with Faith being who she was? Certainly. But also, in a way she wouldn't even pretend to understand, it was comforting.

"I want to get these bastards," Faith said, almost growling. "The ones who did this to me, to you. I want to get them and make them pay." A feral smile appeared on her face. "That okay with you, kid?"

Max smiled back at her.

"It's what I wanted to do for the last ten years."

"Good. Now, I realize that it won't be easy. Soldiers, guns, a hundred more like you, but I've got the big brains in there working on it already. We'll find a way. I promise you that. We'll get your siblings out of there and shut this Frankenstein lab down for good."

Max nodded, though the joy she felt upon hearing her mother utter these words was somewhat dampened by the knowledge of how hard it would be to accomplish, if it was possible at all. Then something else occurred to her. 

"I should probably find some way to contact the others."

"Others?"

"I was one of twelve who escaped ten years ago. Eleven of us are still free. I've only been in loose contact with some of the others this last year."

Faith looked thoughtful. "Ten more like you? Out in the world and pissed at Manticore? I think we could do something with that." Max didn't miss the slightly worried look in her eyes, though. The thought of meeting ten more kids that she had never known about had to be weird.

"I don't really know how to get in touch with them, but I have a friend who might think of some trick or other. He's quite handy that way."

"A friend?" Faith asked with a raised eyebrow. "Or something more than a friend?"

"Me and Logan aren't like that," Max said automatically, though she was anything but certain when it came to anything regarding herself and Logan. She knew she had some feelings for him, but it was strange and frightening. Something she had never been made for. So usually she did her best to ignore it.

"Logan, eh?" Faith smirked at her. "I've got to meet that boy. Check out whether or not he's good enough for my little girl."

Max gave her a look of mock disgust.

"I've only known you for a few hours. You don't get a say in who I might date or not."

"Oh, so it's dating now? I knew there was more to this Logan fellow."

"We are not ..."

"Ever hear the one about the lady protesting too much?"

From the balcony above Robin watched as his wife and her newfound daughter bantered with each other and couldn't help a smile. No one knew better than him how deeply it had hurt Faith to lose her unborn children, how devastated she had been upon learning that she could never have kids. She might have fooled some of the others with her usual carefree attitude and snappy comebacks, but he had been able to see past her façade almost from the day he first met her.

Maybe things were finally looking up a bit. Maybe life had just handed Faith a break for the first time in twenty years.

One could only hope.

TO BE CONTINUED


	9. Big Brother Calling

**Author's Note**: As Dlgood pointed out (thanks for the review) Robin Wood was obviously born before his mother was called as the Slayer. It was never mentioned in the show, but seeing as he was at least five or six when she died (as seen in 'Lies My Parents Told Me') I pretty much assumed that as given, otherwise Niki would have held the title of longest-lived Slayer ever. So the whole "Slayers can't have kids" thing doesn't apply in Robin's case. I probably should have mentioned that somewhere in the last chapter. Sorry for the oversight.

Zack debuts in the chapter below and the rest of the 'fucked Brady Bunch' (tm by Sith Sora Jade) will make an appearance in chapter 10, so it's not far away now. How will they react to Faith and she to them? You'll have to wait and see, I'm afraid. And no, I can definitely say that the stupid plot device known as the 'Max-Logan-can't-touch-virus' will not make an appearance in my story.

As for pairings, this is not a shipper-story, so apart from Faith-Robin and some Max-Logan there won't be much in the way of romance or couple-interaction. And no Max-Alec, either. Sorry, Kida9, but I could never get into that ship. Too much like incest for me, considering that they are basically siblings.

And now, on with the show!

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Chapter 9: Big Brother Calling

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Zack was hovering somewhere between concerned and furious. Appearances to the contrary there were times he felt guilty for excluding Max from the network he had put up for the Manticore escapees, but right now was definitely not one of them. Max was reckless and her actions put them all in danger.

Case in point his current predicament.

No one but an X-5 could have caught it. And even Zack had only seen it because, ever since that do-gooder Logan had helped him contact the other X-5 in time to warn them about Lydecker, he made a point of watching each and every Eyes Only broadcast that went out over the airwaves. If nothing else it told him where trouble was liable to spring up and helped steer himself and the others clear of it.

During the broadcast he had seen a message. No one with merely human eyesight would have seen it, but Zack's genetically enhanced vision had no trouble. It was only a single frame, set between two pictures of a drug lord Logan was currently targeting. It was visible for about a sixteenth of a second. 

It read: Zack, please contact me! It's urgent!

For quite some time he considered not responding to the message. Yes, Max had saved him and the others from Manticore, but her presence in Seattle also put them at risk. And pulling stunts like this ... Lydecker knew that the X-5 were somehow allied with Eyes Only. He would be watching every single broadcast, would try to track Logan down.

Granted, even if Manticore had caught the message, they wouldn't know how Zack was supposed to contact Eyes Only and from where. Logan seemed to be remarkably capable of erasing his tracks, seeing as he had made a number of enemies and never been caught. Still, everything inside him rebelled from calling, from getting caught up in what promised to be another of Max' insane stunts.

Finally, though, it came down to the fact that she was his little sister. If she needed his help then the least he could do was take a look and see if he could provide it. He had taken it upon himself to keep his siblings safe after their escape from Manticore and that included Max, whether she followed his lead or not. He didn't like it. In fact, he hated it. Still, she was his little sister. So he called. Grudgingly.

He didn't have Max' number (he didn't even know whether or not she had a phone in that hole she called an apartment), so he called Logan. That number he had made sure to remember. One never knew when one might need the aid of the person who might just be the most talented hacker in America today. An idealistic fool, certainly, but capable.

"Cale residence?" an unknown voice answered. Probably that physical therapist Logan employed.

"Can I speak to Logan please? Tell him it's Zack."

There was some silence on the other end, then Logan's voice sounded from the receiver.

"Zack, that was fast. I thought I might have to send out a dozen broadcasts before the message reached you."

"Where is Max?" Zack asked, not in the mood for chit-chat.

"She isn't in town right now. Hang on, I'll relay you to her cell phone."

Max had a cell phone? Since when?

"Just give me the number, I'll dial it myself."

"No, Zack. For some reason Max doesn't want you to have her number. God alone knows why she would want to withhold such information from her brother."

Zack kept his quiet, not caring for the sarcastic tone Logan adopted. This was some kind of payback for changing the contact number, wasn't it? Max was mad at him, didn't understand that such a precaution was necessary to ensure the safety of everyone involved. Damn hotheaded fool.

After a long moment another person joined the call.

  
"Hi, big brother," Max said, her voice carrying a kind of cheer that made Zack instantly suspicious. Something was up and he was pretty sure he wasn't going to like it.

"Max, what is the matter? Are you in trouble?"

"Straight to business as always, right? You really do need to learn how to relax a bit."

"I'm not in a joking mood, Max. Things have gotten more difficult since we all had to go on the run again. Get to the point!"

"To the point then," she said, still cheerfully. "I want you to come to Los Angeles, Zack. And bring as many of the others as you can gather on short notice."

Zack's eyes widened and for a long moment he waited for his sister to tell him she was just joking again. Only she didn't.

"I have no doubt you think you have a damn good reason for this nonsense, Max," he began, only to be interrupted.

"You better believe I have a damn good reason, Zack! In case you have forgotten I saved your ass not three weeks ago. If not for Logan and me fully half of us would be back at Manticore by now, having their brains washed, steamed, and hung out to dry. So get off your high horse and listen!"

He sighed deeply, but kept his quiet.

"I met someone yesterday," Max continued. "Someone I think you and the others should meet as well."

"Who?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, that's why you have to come here."

"Max, I will not jeopardize everyone's safety just because you ..."

"Shut up," she snarled at him, the cheer evaporating from her voice. "You owe me, Zack! You owe me big! Not just for saving your ass, but also for keeping me in the dark about the fate of you and the others for ten years. I know what I'm doing."

Zack felt a strong urge to simply slam down the receiver and end the call right then and there. He owed Max for his life, that was true, but the rest? She still didn't understand, did she? They weren't free. None of them. They had to be careful, they had to keep a low profile. Neither of which Max was good at.

"Give me one good reason," he finally said. "And none of that 'I owe you' crap. Give me one good reason to jeopardize everyone's safety!"

There was a long silence on the other end and for a moment Zack wondered whether Max was going to end the call.

"We might have a chance to end it all, Zack," she finally said, her voice sincere. "I think we finally have a shot of breaking free of Manticore once and for all. To put an end to their atrocities."

After a moment she added "Isn't that worth some risk, big brother?"

Zack said nothing, but his thoughts were racing. Break free of Manticore? Put an end to them? How often had he dreamed about doing just that? Whenever he'd had a free moment he had tried drawing up plans, strategies, tactics, anything that would give them even a remote chance of destroying the bastards who had created them.

It was a senseless undertaking, though. Even if the twelve ... no, eleven ... of them teamed up and used every bit of training and experience they had, it wouldn't matter. Manticore had a hundred of the X-5, no doubt brainwashed into absolute loyalty and ready to kill their own brothers and sisters. Not to mention whatever new generation of transgenics they might have raised in the last ten years. Plus the conventional troops, equipped with the best military hardware tax money could buy.

His one and only hope was that, sooner or later, the government would cut Manticore's funding and put the project on ice. Lydecker's continuing failure to capture the escaped X-5 was the only thing working in their favor. Maybe it was enough to outweigh whatever successes he had employing the other X-5 in God alone knew what kind of missions all over the world.

Only that was a fool's hope. He knew that. America was still struggling to reclaim even a tenth of the power it had once had. Most of its military was gone, wiped out by the Pulse. Nuclear missiles rotted in their silos with all their circuits fried. Hundreds of planes had dropped from the air. Much of the useless military hardware had been looted for spare parts by a populace in blind panic before anything could be done to restore them.

The government needed every advantage it could get and the transgenic soldiers were the only one they had right now. They wouldn't abandon Manticore unless someone gave them a very, very good reason to do it.

Had Max found a way to do that? Most of him didn't believe it for a second. No way someone as foolish and hotheaded as Max could come up with a plan to put Manticore away for good. She had met someone she said? Probably another idealistic fool like Logan, someone who had found out about Manticore and thought he could save America from these dastardly black ops bastards.

A small part of him, though, couldn't quite quench the glimmer of hope he felt upon hearing his sister utter these words of hers. To be free, to be really and truly free. No more running, no more hiding. It would finally allow him to rest, to be free of this self-imposed responsibility. Maybe it would finally allow him to have something like a life of his own.

Wasn't that worth some risk? The question seemed to echo endlessly inside his head.

"I hope you know what you're doing, Max," he said after a minute of silence had passed. "I really hope you know what you're doing."

"When can you be here?" she simply asked.

Zack went through the list of the other escapees in his head. After Lydecker had uncovered the locations of half of them due to Zack's own stupidity Logan's Eyes Only message had sent them all running. All of them had called in by now, so he had some rough knowledge of their current locations.

"I can be in Los Angeles in two days," he told her. "Most of the others should be able to make it, too." He could think of only two who were too far away and one other whom he wasn't really sure about anymore. Ben hadn't been right in his head for a long time now. Zack had no clue whether he would follow orders and come to Los Angeles.

"That should do," Max said. "I'll leave it up to you to name a location for our meeting. Relay it through Logan! Just so you know, I'll be bringing company."

"That person you met? Care to give me at least some hint?"

"Not really, no. See you in two days, Zack. I'm looking forward to this family reunion. I've got a feeling it'll be really special."

With that last comment she hung up, leaving Zack with a growing feeling of concern and frustration. The thought that this was how Max must usually feel whenever she had to deal with him never occurred to him.

TO BE CONTINUED


	10. Meet 'da Kidz!

**Author's Note**: First off, a long overdue answer to Jane Silver's question: No, no additional artwork is in the planning for this story. I usually don't do more than a single picture per story unless I find myself particularly inspired.

Second, this will be the last chapter for at least two weeks. I'll be going on holiday to Spain with my girlfriend and we'll be living the easy live for a while, so I rather doubt I'll get much writing done. Sorry about that, but sometimes a man's gotta have priorities.

Third and last, thanks to all the people who've posted reviews for this story. Even if I don't get around to answering all of you, be assured that I'm grateful for all your contributions. Without that I doubt I'd get even a fraction of the writing done. Thanks to you all.

And now, on with the show!

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Chapter 10: Meet 'da Kidz!

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Faith looked around at the chosen meeting place and couldn't help a smirk appearing on her lips.

"He really wanted to meet here?" she asked Max, who was walking silently by her side. "He watched too many gangsta movies, didn't he?"

"Zack likes to do things his way," she simply answered. From what little Faith had witnessed of the interaction between Max and her big brother (who was her son in a way still too weird to fully wrap her mind around) there was a lot of bad blood there. Max was wild and reckless, as evident by the way she had entered Faith's life, while Zack sounded very much like a control freak of the kind the Council of Watchers would have loved. A lot of potential for friction there.

She wondered how the other nine kids she was slated to meet tonight would turn out to be.

The area Zack had chosen as their meeting place was in Los Angeles' warehouse district, more specifically a single warehouse near the harbor. Only a few hundred meters away the docks were still brimming with activity, loading and unloading going on at all hours, but here it was empty and quiet. The whole place was a maze of dark alleys, tunnels, buildings, and whatnot. You'd need a well-sized army to find someone here and a few fugitives would have no trouble dropping out of sight at a moment's notice.

"We should be wearing trench coats or something," Faith muttered, a bittersweet feeling passing through her as she remembered Richard Wilkins saying similar words once upon a time. He had been the closest thing to a father she'd ever had, no matter how evil a bastard he might have been to anyone else. There were still days she missed him.

"The time for the meeting is in five minutes," Max said, checking her watch, "but if I know Zack, he's here already and has been watching us for the last ten or so."

She looked up and into the same corner Faith had been looking at ever since entering the warehouse and added, "Isn't that right, big brother?"

A shadow detached from the corner and stepped into what little light streamed in from outside, which was more than enough for everyone present. Faith didn't have the same cat-like eyesight Max had, but that didn't trouble her much. What she didn't see her other senses picked up just fine. She was quite aware that Zack and the two of them weren't the only people currently present.

Seeing Zack almost immediately reminded her of Riley, the soldier boy Buffy had dated her first year of college. Tall, blonde, square-jawed, looking as if he'd just stepped off a recruitment poster for Uncle Sam's army. There was something in his eyes, though, that Riley had never had. Zack had the kind of eyes that said he'd kill anyone who endangered his mission, said mission being the safety of his siblings.

Faith stared back at him, unblinking.

"You wanted me to meet someone," Zack said by way of introduction. "I'm assuming that's her?"

Max opened her mouth, but Faith brushed past her and walked toward her son (still strange!) with a confident swagger of hips. The boy immediately fell into a combat stance, but that didn't worry her too much.

"That's me," she grinned at him. "Faith is my name, and you must be Zack. I've heard a lot about you, kid, and not much of it good."

She stopped just out of arm's reach, staring up at him. He was a few inches taller than her and his body was covered in streamlined muscle. She had little doubt he'd be a tough opponent in a fight. Her smile didn't waver, though. A slight feeling of déjà vû from her first meeting with Max overcame her. Would she have to greet all her children with an ass-kicking? That would be a whole lot of ass-kickings.

"I'm waiting, Max," Zack said, never taking his eyes off Faith.

"Meet Faith Wilkins, Zack," Max answered him with the barest hint of amusement in her voice. "Our long-lost mommy."

Faith smirked at Zack's non-existent expression. "No hug?" she mock-pouted.

Zack spent a second looking at Max, then back at Faith. "I don't have time for this kind of nonsense."

"Logan found a file," Max continued on. "Turns out our DNA isn't entirely home-cooked after all. They needed some hardcore-genes to slap all those enhancements onto. The first four tries, X-1 through X-4, were a complete bust because human DNA didn't have what it took. Then they found someone else, someone a little more than human. Her DNA worked just fine, so they extracted some ova from her, pumped all their little science projects inside, and nine months later … transgenic super-babies! Us!"

Zack's eyes narrowed as he studied Faith, clearly trying to assess what Max meant by 'a little more than human' and at the some wondering whether he was being handed a pile of crap here.

"I went through all this with your sister," Faith told him. "So let me see if I can guess your questions. No, I'm not part of this Manticore perversity. No, I never had a clue this all happened because I was in a coma at the time. Long story. And no, you're not being handed a pile of crap, sonny."

For a minute or so Zack remained quiet, then turned to look at Max with a sneer on his face.

"So what?" he asked. "You decided to risk all our lives for this? Is she going to bring Manticore down for us? Even if I were to believe all of this, I'd still ..."

Without warning Faith decked him, the punch coming so quickly that the younger man never had a chance to defend himself. Zack went flying through the air and came to a hard stop a dozen or so feet away. He immediately rolled back to his feet, though, his eyes blazing with anger, but also a healthy amount of weariness. The speed and the strength of the hit had clearly told him that he wasn't facing a mere human here.

"I was never good with the talking," Faith told him calmly, all humor gone from her voice. "I'm gonna give it a try, though. Once I'm sure that I have your undivided attention, kid. Are you gonna listen? Or do we have to do this the hard way?"

Faith sensed the other presences in the warehouse inching closer, but none of them seemed poised to interfere just yet. She knew that Amanda, Rona, Violet, Georgia, Alison, Maliya, and Angel were close by, just waiting for a signal from Faith to enter the fray in case things got ugly. She hoped it wouldn't have to go quite that far, though. She didn't want to fight her own kids and she certainly didn't want to put Max into a position where she might have to fight her siblings.

Zack seemed conflicted for a long minute, but finally settled for wiping some blood from his split lip and glaring at her.

"Talk fast," he growled at her.

"Manticore is going down," Faith growled back. "For what they did to me, for what they did to you. I'm sure I haven't even heard a fraction of what was going on there yet, but I've heard quite enough. I didn't know about you kids until three days ago, but that doesn't change the fact that you're my children. No one does that kind of stuff to my children and gets away with it. You asked me if I'm going to bring down Manticore _for_ you, Zack? No, I won't. But I'm going to do it _with_ you. If you've got the guts to stop hiding and start fighting."

 She looked up from him and into the surrounding darkness.

"That goes for all of you."

Nothing happened for what seemed like an eternity, but then someone stepped out of the shadows and looked at Max. It was a girl holding quite some resemblance to Max except for her blonde hair.

"Jondy?" Max whispered, almost as if she didn't quite believe she was finally seeing her sister again.

"Is she telling the truth, Max?" Jondy asked. There was the barest tremble in her stance, as if she'd like nothing better than to run to Max and capture her in a hug, but didn't quite trust the situation yet. Ten years on the run, Faith reminded herself. She remembered what kind of wreck she herself had been after but a few weeks on the run from Kakistos. Her anger towards Manticore and this Lydecker person increased once again.

"We did a DNA test," Max told her sister and the others. "It's true. And I've seen what she can do and what her friends can do. I think we have a fighting chance. I'd never have endangered all of you if I didn't think we finally had a chance."

Jondy seemed to search Max' face for some sign that she was really telling the truth while Zack continued to hover in the background, his face grim. Faith, doing her best to keep the welling emotions inside her under control, slowly walked towards Jondy.

"It's time to stop running," she simply said. "I won't pretend to understand what you all went through in your youth or in those ten years you spent on the run, but it's time to take a stand now. It's time to kick Manticore's ass. My friends and me, we'll do it alone if we have to. No one gets away with what they did. But our chances will be a whole lot better if you're with us. What do you say? Wanna kick Lydecker's ass?"

More people stepped out of the shadows. On first glance all they had in common was their age. Different hair colors, different shades of skin, no one would have guessed that all of them were related. There was something they all had in common, though. A stoop to their shoulders that told of a bone-deep tiredness, a hardness in their eyes that said they'd seen a lot of things kids their age should never have to see. It was eerie how their looks reminded Faith of the Slayers when they had been young.

"What are the odds?" a boy whom she would later learn was called Zane asked.

"Of pulling this off? Or of our surviving it?"

"Both."

Faith grinned at him. "Better than you'll ever be handed again in this lifetime, junior."

The tension in the warehouse seemed thick enough to cut it with a knife and Faith could sense, at the very edge of her perception, that Angel and the other Slayers were hovering closer than before. No doubt the big guy had sensed or smelled the mounting tension and decided to be ready in case there was trouble.

Zane looked at Zack even as the other X-5 were trading glances. None of them seemed eager to make the first move, but all of them wanted to do something. Faith could practically see the weight gathering on Zack's shoulders. The others still regarded him as the leader, or all of them except Max did, but it became increasingly clear what they wanted him to decide.

"Perhaps we should talk some more," he finally said, surrendering to the inevitable.

The tension broke and the various youths present abandoned their combat stances. Jondy immediately went to Max, the two girls hugging each other for all they were worth. Some others soon joined, turning it into a group hug. Faith couldn't help but smile. No matter how hostile the world might have been to those kids, at least they'd had each other. Now they had each other again.

Her kids, she reminded herself once again. These were all her kids. Gods, when the world decided to throw her a curve ball it sure didn't do things halfway.

"We're taking an awfully big risk," Zack told her, having walked up to stand beside her. "I hope you know what you're doing."

Well, she hadn't really expected to be greeted with hugs and kisses, either. These kids, and especially Zack, had been conditioned to see everyone as a potential enemy. It would take time until they started trusting each other. Max glanced over at her, giving her an encouraging smile.

"I hope so, too," Faith whispered, too low for even the X-5 to hear her. "I really hope so, too."

TO BE CONTINUED


	11. Strategies

**Author's Note**: Hi everyone! Thank you for the many reviews I got and sorry that it took me so long to get this thing going again. Seeing as my life is a bit hectic at the moment I'm afraid new updates will be infrequent, at least for the next few weeks, maybe months. Not sure yet. I will keep working on this, though, never fear.

Oh, and one more thing. Someone asked about Spike. I'm not going off on a rant here again, so let me just put it this way: You'd have to pay me an awful lot of money to even consider putting that sorry excuse for a character in my story. Spike was ruined for me by the chip, the so-called romance with Buffy, and the soul that made him Angel Mark II. So no Spike! Ever! This will be a good story. Don't ask me about Spike again!

And now, on with the show!

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Part 11: Strategies

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Several days had passed since Faith's children had stepped into their lives and Angel was a bit worried. From everything they had been told so far this wouldn't be an easy mission. Quite the opposite, actually. The Manticore complex in Gillette, Wyoming, was a fortress if he'd ever seen one. Heavily fortified, heavily guarded, and containing an unspecified number of transgenic super soldiers, all of them brainwashed into unthinking loyalty to their creators. Max and Zack both estimated that a few of their siblings might be able to break the programming and switch sides (apparently it happened before), but wouldn't bet any money on it.

What layouts they had of the complex were stitched together from the kids' memories and some satellite shots provided by Max' mysterious friend 'Eyes Only'. Said friend was with them right now, just not in the flesh. A monitor and a small camera stood on the table before them, the former showing nothing but a pair of eyes. Max had apologized for the secrecy, but according to her a few too many people had learned Eyes Only's identity in the last year or so and he didn't want to risk any further exposure until he was absolutely sure that Faith and her friends could be trusted. Angel couldn't honestly be mad at him for being careful.

Max, Faith, Wesley, and Zack were present as well, all of them sitting around the table in Angel's office. The purpose of this meeting was to lay down some kind of attack plan on the Manticore base. Unfortunately so far they had very little in the way of ideas on how to proceed.

"A direct assault is out of the question," Angel said, having studied the lay-outs quite extensively. "Even with eleven transgenics, seven Slayers, and myself on the team I doubt we'd get very far."

"We need to be sneaky about this," Faith agreed. The days when her idea of a plan consisted mostly of 'Let's go in and kick their butts' were long over. A Slayer didn't live as long as she had without learning the value of carefulness.

"The objective is to get the kids out," she reminded everyone, "and give us a chance to unwash their brains. From what you told me Manticore is heavily funded by the government, so merely destroying the complex isn't gonna cut it. They'll simply rebuild elsewhere. We need to do something to make sure that the government will drop this thing for good."

"I believe I can help with this," Eyes Only said, his voice distorted to prevent identification. "If you can manage to take along documentation from the complex, documents proving what Manticore is and what it did, I can broadcast them and supply information to all major news outlets. If I know our government they'll quickly find a scapegoat and wash their hands of the whole thing. It's not a perfect solution, but it should take Manticore down for good."

Angel was tapping his fingers on the table. Something about this situation did not feel quite right to him. There were a lot of open questions they needed answers to. How had Manticore known about Faith, known that she was special? And how had her DNA made the creation of super soldiers possible? Angel would be the first to admit that he didn't know much about modern genetics, but he had quite the extensive knowledge regarding the Slayer.

A Slayer's powers couldn't be explained genetically. Someone of Faith's stature and weight simply couldn't have as much strength and speed as she did. It was magic, pure and simple, and some part of him couldn't quite believe that magic-based abilities could be captured in a DNA helix and given to someone else.

Case in point being Faith's husband Robin, the son of a Slayer. Granted, he had been born before his mother had been called, otherwise the healing powers of the Chosen One would have aborted the pregnancy before it had the chance to impair the Slayer's fighting prowess. Still, if the Slayer's powers were genetic in nature Robin should at the very least have gotten something extra from his mother. Only he hadn't. He was one hundred percent human. One of the best fighters Angel had ever seen, but still just human.

"Which still leaves us with the problem of how to get in, free the kids, and get them to safety without getting killed or having the entire US armed forces on our tail," Wesley's voice interrupted Angel's train of thoughts. "You escaped from this installation. How did you get out?"

He looked at Max and Zack. The two siblings exchange a short look that spoke volumes about the unresolved issues between them, then Max shrugged. "We knocked a hole in the wall and ran really fast. We vaulted the fence. I don't know about the others, but I fell into a frozen lake and hid underneath the ice until the guards were gone. Then I got to the road and hitchhiked."

Wesley gave her something of a sour expression. "That might be a viable option for getting out again, but first we have to get in."

"I can get in without being seen," Angel offered, confident he could do it.

"And how exactly?" Zack asked, clearly not impressed.

"He has no heat signature, he makes no noise if he doesn't want to, and he's really sneaky all-around," Max pointed out for her big brother. Zack was still rather skeptical about the whole vampire issue, but Max was a believer by now. "Also, bullets don't really hurt him."

"Oh, they hurt," Angel corrected her.

"Okay, but they don't kill you. If all fails you can just fall down and play dead for a while. Make them carry you inside."

"If Angel can get inside," Wesley continued the thought, "he has a good chance of shutting down whatever surveillance equipment the complex has, allowing the rest of us to get in unnoticed."

"And how is he going to do that?" Zack looked at Angel. "No offense, but the complex is huge. None of us has a clue where they've set up the surveillance office and I doubt even you can walk around among a hundred or more transgenics for any length of time before you're spotted."

Max glared at him, but nodded reluctantly. "I'm afraid he's right."

"There is another problem," Eyes Only added. "I don't know how good your technical skills are, Angel. The surveillance needs to be deactivated in a way that doesn't immediately draw suspicion from whatever guards might be watching the monitors or patrolling the parameters."

Angel nodded, always the first to admit that his skills in the areas of technology were lacking. Being nearly three centuries old, sometimes he still had a hard time getting used to all that electrical light nonsense and such.

 "If we want to pull this off," Max said, "we need someone with more insider knowledge of the base than any of us can provide."

A smirk appeared on Faith's face. Angel knew that smirk. It usually meant that the Slayer had just gotten an idea that was liable to either save the day or get them all into a lot of trouble. Usually both.

"Hey, Zack," she addressed her son. "I seem to remember you going on and on about how dangerous it was to have all you kids together in one place like this. How it was liable to get you all caught by this ... what was his name?"

"Lydecker," Zack growled, the one word speaking volumes about what he thought of this man. "He's gotten closer and closer to us this last year." A side-glance towards Faith clearly stated whom he blamed for that turn of events.

Angel also smirked now, picking up on Faith's idea.

"Maybe the good Colonel should get some helpful hints from a concerned citizen?" Faith asked. "Or maybe some rumors about a bunch of super-strong kids hanging out in LA?"

Zack and Max also understood what they were planning now.

"This isn't a good idea," Zack said. "Lydecker is no fool. If he's told we're all here he'll arrive with enough backup to reduce LA to smoking ruins."

"Then we'll have to be selective about what we let him know," Eyes Only made himself known once again. "Unless I'm mistaken you and Zack are the only ones he knows by sight, Max. How about we make sure that one of your faces gets shown on television. That will have him here in a heartbeat."

"Even if he thinks it's just two of us he'll bring a lot of reinforcements along."

Max gave Zack a playful punch to the shoulder. "What's the matter, big brother? Don't think we can handle a squad or two of Manticore enforcers?" 

Zack gave her a sour look, but said nothing in return.

"I know a reporter or two who owe me a favor," Wesley said. "I think we can arrange for Max to 'accidentally' get her face on national TV."

"Even if this works," Zack once more the voice of doubt, "we still have to get Lydecker to help us."

"Don't worry about that," Faith brushed his concern aside. "We got a few persuasion experts in residence." A dark look was briefly visible in her eyes, one Angel had no doubt was mirrored in his own. Both Faith and he had more than their share of experience when it came to torture and neither of them was proud of how they had gotten it.

"I think we can convince the good Colonel to help us," Angel just said, banishing his feelings of remorse.

"You're all crazy," Zack muttered, but seemed resigned to the plan, such as it was. Max and Faith gave him nearly identical smirks, a sight that was still a little weird to see.

TO BE CONTINUED


	12. Parental Issues

Author's Note: Hi everyone! I know it's been ages since I updated this story, but it has not been forgotten. I hope you're all still interested in reading this. Please let me know. I'm feeling a little more inspired currently, so maybe I can bring this thing to a conclusion before another few months come and go. Here's hoping.  
And now, on with the show! 

#

Part 12: Parental Issues

#

Colonel Donald Lydecker was a complex man. Not that you would know it from casual acquaintance. At first glance he would seem rather simplistic. Just another army character, grim and gritty, interested in nothing but the next mission, the next objective. He was all that, granted, but there was more to him than that.

When he had first been approached about taking over the Manticore Project, leading and training the finest soldiers the world had ever seen, he had just come out of a deep depression. A mission gone sour, comrades-in-arms dying, alcoholism, his wife leaving him, everything had come together to drag him down. He had clawed his way back out, though, and this new command, this new mission, had quickly become his lifeline and purpose.

No one who had seen him train and shape the X-5 soldiers would even have considered the notion, but Lydecker did feel a sort of fatherly love for his kids. A form of love only very few people would ever understand. Tough love of the most severe kind, maybe. Training these kids, making them the best soldiers they possibly could be, was his life's work. He wanted to see them succeed. If that meant pruning the weaker ones and putting the strong ones through the wringer over and over again then that was what he would do.

On one hand Manticore was a tremendous success. For the last several years the X-5 had undertaken numerous missions for the government and had scored a one hundred percent success rate. And they were still so young, all of them. They would only get better with age and experience, he was certain of that. His kids were growing up and at times he could not help but beam with pride (though no one would ever see it through his grim mask).

On the other hand one giant failure still haunted him. The twelve escapees. Ten years had passed since they slipped from his grasp and how many had he managed to recapture? One. Only one. And even that one only because she had been delivered to him by the other escapees in order to save her from the same degenerating syndrome that had brought down several other kids from that first X-5 batch.

He was getting closer, though. During the last year things had started going his way more and more. Some of the X-5 were starting to make mistakes, chief among them X-5 452, the one called Max. And after that debacle just a few weeks ago the other X-5 were all on the run, chased out of their hiding places and looking for shelter. No one could completely cover their tracks while on the run, not even his kids. It was only a matter of time now.

Today he would make a beginning. Less than two days earlier a fresh sighting of Max had been reported to him by his surveillance technicians. It seemed his favorite daughter was growing desperate. While she had been busy in the Seattle region this past year, she seemed to have moved on as well now. She had been spotted during a televised charity gala held by Nabbit Industries in Los Angeles, working as a valet. Running low on cash?

Whatever the case, he had immediately mobilized a capture unit and brought it to Los Angeles. It was time to nab this most rebellious of all X-5 and put her back where she belonged. Breaking her will would not be easy, he knew that, but it could be done. No one was unbreakable. That was one of the first lessons he had taught his kids. Given the right methods everyone could be brought low, made to talk, and reshaped into whatever you wanted them to be.

"We have the information," his second-in-command said, bringing him out of his thoughts. "The valet service for the charity gala was provided by a company called Windham-Price General Service. We have their office address."

"Mobilize the troops, captain."

Fifteen minutes later they were disembarking in front of a simple office building in downtown Los Angeles. Something was bothering Lydecker about the building, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Maybe it was just that the neighborhood seemed a little bit too seedy for a company that was working for Nabbit Industries. Well, whatever the case, there was little he had to be afraid of. He had enough troops to take down Max and any other X-5 that might be with her. This time she wouldn't escape.

A few hand signals were all it took to divide his troops to cover all the entrances and exits of the building. Moving in, they quickly made their way up to the second floor and stopped in front of a glass door with the company name on it. Lydecker frowned. It almost looked like the name was ... freshly painted?

Alarm sirens were going off inside his head, but it was too late.

All hell broke loose suddenly. Gas grenades exploded all over the staircase, quickly spreading man-made fog into all available room and reducing sight to zero. Without even thinking about it Lydecker slipped on the gas mask that was part of his combat gear, but by the coughs and choking sounds he could hear over his radio it was clear that not all of his people were fast enough. Bodies dropped to the floor as the knockout gas took effect, taking out an estimated quarter of his troops.

"Weapons ready everyone," he yelled to his people. "I want an orderly withdrawal from the building on the double!"

His men complied quickly, but he had the feeling that whoever had set this trap wasn't just going to let them walk out of here. A moment later his fears were vindicated as he heard the tell-tale signs of flesh hitting flesh, followed by screams of pain and more bodies hitting the floor. He saw a shadow move through the man-made fog in front of him, moving much faster than a human being should.

"X-5 sighted," he yelled. "Fire tranquilizers!"

All their weapons expect a few were loaded with knockout bullets, all of them carrying loads strong enough to knock out elephants. His people were all wearing Kevlar, so the risk of being taken out by friendly fire was minimal. He heard multiple guns go off, heard the singing of bullets cutting through the air, but the sounds of combat didn't lessen.

"Lydecker to Team 2," he called for his backup, stationed outside the building. "Give me a report!"

Nothing came back but the crackle of static. Damn it! Whoever was doing this to him had either already taken out his backup or was expertly jamming his radio. Probably both. They needed to get out of here and fast.

"All units, withdraw to the vehicles! I repeat, withdraw to the vehicles!"

There was no answer, either. By now he had almost expected that. Throwing caution to the wind he quickly made his own way down the stairs, almost stumbling several times as he came across unconscious bodies, all of them wearing the black combat gear of his troops. If any of the hostiles had gone down he couldn't see it.

It seemed he had taught his kids too well.

Somehow he made it down to the ground floor and found the exit, the gas clearing as he stepped out onto the street. A grim sight awaited him. The vehicles he and his men had arrived in were still there, but there was no sign of his soldiers. Instead a horde of street kids seemed to have taken over, all of them looking at him while brandishing weapons ranging from baseball bats to submachine guns.

A bald black man, apparently their leader, was leaning against the hood of Lydecker's car and sported a big smile.

"Welcome to the mean streets, Donald! Hope you enjoy your stay!"

Covering his rising fear with the same grim mask that made young recruits cringe in mortal terror he addressed the other. "I don't know who you are, but you have no idea of the trouble you just got yourself into."

"Oh, he has a pretty good idea," a new voice announced. A familiar one.

Turning around, he spotted the object of his hunt. The one who had quite obviously turned the tables on him.

"Max!"

"Our last meeting was cut tragically short," the girl went on, grinning. "I was hoping you could stay a little longer this time around. I wanted you to meet some of my friends."

A large group of people walked out of the building behind her, removing gas masks as they came. At least one of them he recognized: Zack. Self-appointed leader and guardian of the escapees. Had he planned this ambush? Maybe Lydecker had underestimated him.

Some of the newcomers had the right age and looks to be the rest of his kids. Ten of them, to be exact. All the other escapees? All in one spot? What about the others, though? There were half a dozen of them, all females, all of them at least thirty years old.

"It's a family reunion, Donald," Max said cheerfully. "All your kids are home. Plus a few other relatives you might not be familiar with."

One of the older women stepped up beside Max and something about her was eerily familiar to Lydecker. A moment later he remembered. Twenty years ago when he had first taken over command of Manticore he had been shown the original files. They had included a picture of all the genetic donors for the project, including the one whose DNA had made it all possible. A young girl at the time, her name, origin, and everything else about her had been classified.

He remembered the face, though. It was looking at him right now.

"I hear you're the closest thing to a daddy my brat pack here has," the woman said, the smile on her face anything but friendly. "I think we need to work out a few parental issues, you and I. You know, father to mother."

Lydecker was frozen, unable to think of anything to say or do. Another figure walked out of the gas-filled building at that moment, a man in his mid-twenties and dressed all in black. What made him stand out, though, was the fact that he wasn't wearing a gas mask and seemed none the worse for wear for it.

"And just in case we don't manage to arrive at some sort of civil custody agreement," the woman went on as the man walked up to him, "meet the kids' favorite uncle."

The 'uncle' stopped a step away from Lydecker and, despite the youthful face, something about his eyes chilled him to the bone.

"I'm sure the good colonel can be reasoned with," the black-clad man said. "One way or the other."

Before Lydecker had a chance to process that rather ominous statement the man's hand lashed out faster than the eye could follow and the world went black.

  
TO BE CONTINUED  



	13. A Colonel and a Vampire Sat in a Hotel R...

Author's Note: Well, I guess the question whether or not you lot still remember this story was answered. 13 reviews within a day. I'm not sure whether that's a personal best for me, but it's gotta be in the top five at least. So, to reward you for your dedicated reviewing, here is another chapter. First, though, a few remarks to the reviewers: 

Rosie W: Was Lydecker's wife killed? It's been a while since I watched "Jesus Brought a Casserole", but I don't think it was said one way or the other, just that Max reminded him of her. Oh well, seeing as I've broken Dark Angel continuity quite a few times already, just imagine that she left him during his depressed phase.

Tap Dancing Widow: You'll get your Angel vs. Lydecker in this very chapter. As for Angel meeting Logan, not sure whether I'll include that. If I do, it will be somewhere around the end, as Logan will not be as involved in the attack on Manticore in my story as he was in the TV series. More of a command & control role here.

Ellie: I don't have any pairing plans for this story (I don't really write shipper-fic), but I did include something you might like in this chapter featuring Zack and one of the other Slayers. Will more come from it? Possibly. This is the kind of stuff I might tack on to the end of this story as well.

Again, thanks for all your reviews. Keep it up! And now, on with the show!

#

Part 13: A Colonel and a Vampire Sat in a Hotel Room ...

#

When Colonel Donald Lydecker regained consciousness he made two quick observations. One, he was tied to a chair. Quite expertly so, in fact. He had been taught by the best, but escape from these bonds seemed rather impossible. And second, he wasn't alone. There was one other person in the room he found himself in and it was the 'uncle' from earlier.

The man was sitting in a chair right in front of him, leaning forward, elbows resting on his knees as he studied Lydecker with the air of a psychiatrist measuring his newest patient. The silence was deafening. Turning his head as far as the bonds allowed Lydecker took in the room. Size and layout spoke of a hotel room. Faded wallpapers and shoddy carpet, no furniture but the two chairs and a table. On the table he saw ... tools. Quite a few of them in fact.

"Are you going to torture me now?" he asked.

"Eventually," the other man said calmly. He might as well have been talking about the weather. "I am sure that you have already grasped your situation and are aware that we want information from you."

"And you think any information you might get from me won't be trustworthy unless I have been given some added incentive first?"

"Something along that line, yes."

He made no move to begin, though, falling back into silence. Lydecker wasn't surprised. You want to torture someone? Tell him you're going to and then let him wait for it, stew in his own sweat. Basic technique.

"You've done this before then?"

"Quite a few times, yes."

Silence again. Lydecker studied the man now, remembering the disturbing detail that he had walked out of a gas-filled building without a gas mask. Looking at him now, he searched in vain for any signs of breathing. And that wasn't the only weird thing he picked up about his opposite.

The man looked young, but his eyes looked very old. He didn't blink. At least five minutes passed and he didn't blink. He sat still, incredibly still. If he didn't know better Lydecker might have mistaken him for a wax doll or statue. His skin was pale, as if he hadn't seen the sun in years.

"Torture me all you like," he said, his voice sounding remarkably calm to his own ears. "I've been trained by the best. You won't get anything out of me."

"Are you sure about that?" There! A slight movement of his chest just before he spoke. As if he needed air only in order to speak, but not at other times.

"I'm su..."

"No one can resist torture indefinitely," the man quoted the familiar words. "The mind is infinitely pliable. You will reveal what you know." He gave a brief smile. "Those are your words, aren't they, Donald? May I call you Donald? Max told me a lot about you. About the training you gave them. There was a time they all looked up to you, you know that? That was before they realized what you were doing to them, of course."

"I assume you know what Max and her friends are," he said, hoping to get the other man onto a different train of thoughts.

"I know."

"You are not exactly normal yourself, either, are you?"

"We could spend a lot of time talking about me, Donald. That is not why we are here, though, so I hope you'll forgive me if we skip my life's story for today."

"Do you have a name, son?"

A slight chuckle escaped the man. "Sorry, just the notion of you calling me 'son', well, just believe me that it is rather amusing for reasons you are not privy to. You should know, though, that the last person who called me son was my father and we never got along. I ended up killing him."

His complete matter-of-fact tone robbed Lydecker of any hope that he was joking about that last part.

"You can call me Angel, by the way."

Moving for the first time, he got up and picked up a tool from the nearby table. It was a knife, an ordinary kitchen knife. Just from the way he handled it Lydecker could tell that he knew very well how to use it and not just for peeling apples.

"You are the commanding officer of Manticore," Angel said, walking towards him with the knife in hand. "Your command is located in a secure facility near Gillette, Wyoming. Apart from a rather extensive security system and many armed guards you also have a large number of genetically engineered super soldiers stationed there to protect it."

He squatted down in front of Lydecker, still playing with the knife.

"By the time we are done here you will have told me how to get in without being noticed, how to turn off the security system in a way that won't notify the guards, and how to take down the X-5 soldiers with minimum fuss, a safety measure I'm sure you have installed somewhere."

Lydecker was about to say something, but whatever words he had thought up slipped from his mind before he could utter them when he saw the man's face begin to change. This was impossible! What kind of genetic enhancement could ... long fangs? Bumpy forehead? Amber eyes? What was going on here?

"How long it takes," the man turned monster went on calmly, "is, of course, entirely up to you."

#

Faith's sensitive hearing had little trouble picking up the first scream even through several thick walls. She closed her eyes, trying to block it out. The last thing she needed right now was a flashback to her own darker days. All these years and she still didn't know how Angel did it. How he lived with all he had done, all the blood-soaked memories he carried around. Her own load, as heavy as it was, was less than a hundredth of his.

"He took his time," Zack said from where he sat beside her.

"Angel's got nothing if not patience," Faith told him. "Comes with being as old as dirt, I guess."

"Does he know our time is limited? When Lydecker doesn't call in soon they'll assume he has been captured and change all the security codes, revoke his access privileges, everything."

"He knows, Zack! Let him do his thing, okay? He's the best there is at what he does."

The young man got up with a huff, not caring how many people knew that he didn't like their current situation one bit. 

Most of the other X-5 were in the training area at the moment, sparring with the Slayers to get back into combat shape. Though genetically enhanced, most of them hadn't exactly kept up their training regimes these past few years. Wesley and Robin were observing, hoping to assess the mental readiness of the kids. They were a bit worried about the one called Ben, who seemed mentally unstable at best.

Max was off somewhere chatting with 'Eyes Only', whom Faith secretly suspected was that guy Logan she had been referring to several times now, her almost-boyfriend. She'd have to meet the boy one of these days, put the fear of God in him and everything.

Apart from Faith the only other Slayer present was Alison, taking a break from putting the X-5 through the wringer. The youngest Slayer alive, she had been a mere fourteen years old when Willow's spell activated all the potentials. Despite being thirty now she was still regarded as the baby among their tightly-knit group. So when Faith saw her checking out the pacing Zack's ass she couldn't quite resist a little tease.

"Thinking of shopping in the junior section, baby girl?"

Alison gave her a mock-glare and stuck out her tongue. "Afraid I'll corrupt your son, grandma? Stop him from becoming a perfect Angel-copy?"

Faith barely managed to keep in her laughter, even though she still had trouble thinking of the grim young man as her son. Zack, his own enhanced hearing easily picking up the low-spoken words, just glared at both of them.

"Maybe you should check whether anyone's given him the talk yet, Faith," Alison teased. "You know, the one with the flowers and the bees."

"Maybe I should," Faith went along. "Zack? Come here, son! I want to explain something to you."

She hadn't thought it possible, but his face actually grew grimmer still as he turned around and left the lobby, slamming the doors shut behind him. Alison and Faith no longer managed to restrain themselves and burst out laughing.

"God, Faith," Alison managed between fits. "I don't remember the last time I laughed like this. This place really needed some youth injected into it."

"It sure did," Faith agreed, though she quickly found herself sobering up again. There were quite a few things she had managed not to spend too much time thinking about yet. Like, would the kids stay once their siblings were freed? Could they recruit some of them to help the Slayer cause? Should they? What were her duties as mother to all these children? How much of an influence could she be on them, seeing as they were all grown-up already. How much of an influence should she be?

"You okay?" Alison asked, picking up on Faith's darker mood.

"Yeah. Just thinking."

"Stop that! We always end up in trouble when you try that!"

That managed to bring a smile to Faith's lips, but only for an instant. Then her hearing picked up another scream from the improvised torture chamber two floors above.

  
TO BE CONTINUED


	14. Interludes, Mistakes, and People Not Inv...

Author's Note: Hi everyone and welcome to a new part of Children of My Dreams. I'm currently on a role with this story and trying to milk it for all it's worth. As of now the story will probably have around five to seven more parts. Just a warning ahead, the end of this story will include a major character dying, so if that's not your cup of tea you better stop reading now. 

To answer a few questions:  
Orli43: I don't have a particularly strong grasp of Dark Angel's supporting cast, so Sketchy, Cindy, Herbal, Normal, and the others won't make an appearance except maybe in the epilogue.  
Ellie: I don't think Zack is going to chill anytime soon. See the end of the chapter for the reason why.

And now, on with the show:

#

Part 14: Interludes, Mistakes, and People Not Directly Involved

#

Doctor Elizabeth Renfro looked at the assembled paperwork in front of her and sighed deeply. Slices of dead trees covered with black ink spelled out the end of what had been her life's purpose for nearly twenty years now. Twenty years. Granted, if one considered how old she was and how old she might yet become it wasn't that long a time, but still.

No one wanted Manticore anymore. The politicians were happy with its results, but were anxious to see it disappear before anyone could ask too many questions about how America had come to possess super-powered soldiers. Pesky voters would probably throw a fit just because Manticore had violated just about every genetics law and ethical rule in the book.

Then there were Manticore's true backers, the Council. For a moment Renfro was almost amused, thinking of another Council that had met its fiery demise only a few years after she had begun working on this project. Opposite sides of the coin, but pretty similar regardless. Control freaks, she mused, remained control freaks, no matter whether they proclaimed themselves good or evil.

The Council, she forced her thoughts back on track, wanted Manticore gone, the sooner the better. To be honest she was surprised they had held out as long as they did. The patience of the immortals, she guessed. It had been a simple idea, really. She had foreseen the threat of the Many. Something needed to be done to balance the scales. Only the threat wasn't that much of a threat and the results of her project, while spectacular from a human point of view, weren't anything to brag about if one knew what she had really been trying to accomplish.

Renfro didn't like it, would go so far as to call it a major mistake, but she valued her life a little too much to go against both her political masters and the Council. No, that would be suicide and she had too many years ahead of herself to throw herself onto her sword just because she thought it was the right thing.

That was why she was busy preparing for the destruction of Manticore right at this moment. A lot needed to be done. Of course this installation would have to be destroyed. Wiped right off the face of the Earth. All the people who knew about it (except a few of her political masters maybe) would have to be removed. The adult X-5 needed to be conditioned to forget about their origins, while the younger generations needed termination. Lots of files needed to be shredded, research data erased, tracks of all kinds covered. All in all it amounted to a huge mountain of paperwork.

Being as busy as she was, she almost didn't notice the visitor who had slipped into her office sometime during the last few minutes.

"What do you want, Vigo?"

The figure started, unused to anyone noticing its approach. Straightening from its crouching position it walked up to her desk, trying to appear taller than it actually was.

"I bring news from the Council," the short, stocky man said. He wasn't actually a man, of course, but he appeared as one.

"Tell them I'm working as fast as I can," she said, irritated. "And tell Nero that I always appreciate it when he comes by in person instead of sending his underlings."

Vigo gave her a dark frown, but it trailed off her like water. There were quite a few things she was afraid of, but bottom-feeders like Vigo were not among them.

"Something new has come up," Vigo said, swallowing his irritation. "The Council knows that your pet colonel has gone to Los Angeles to hunt down one of the rogue X-5."

"So?"

"They noticed something interesting in the file material."

He handed her a printout. Renfro needed but a moment to recognize it. A screenshot from the televised charity gala where Manticore's analysts had spotted the X-5 labeled 452. Lydecker had behaved like a kid at Christmas upon seeing it.

"I'm sure Lydecker will do his best to bring her in and fail as usual. What is it to the Council?"

Vigo smiled and pointed at the far left corner of the picture. For a moment Renfro was clueless, but then recognized one of the other faces visible in the picture. The face of a young man, dressed in a black suit, a grim expression on his face.

"Angelus," she whispered. Just when she had thought about he things she feared ...

"The Council believes that it is not a coincidence that the Traitor was at the same charity gala as the rogue X-5. Especially since that X-5 is known to usually reside in Seattle, not Los Angeles."

Renfro nodded, seeing the connections. One of the rogue X-5 appearing in the same town where her genetic mother worked side by side with Angelus, the one called the Traitor? Both of them appearing at the same televised charity gala? Renfro was not a big believer in coincidences, either.

#

"Anything new happening back home?"

Max sat in front of the screen that now showed Logan's whole face instead of just his eyes. The cyber journalist was still back in Seattle, helping out from his end of things. Which made Max feel a whole lot better. Logan was a brilliant hacker, but still a normal human. One that had just recently regained his mobility and still wasn't all that spry again. No, she felt a lot better with him safely out of the way and helping out solely from his computer station.

"Nothing much," he answered her question. "Original Cindy called and said to tell you that Sketchy and Herbal want to meet your mother and sisters as soon as possible."

Max chuckled. Original Cindy knew who and what she really was, but the rest of the Jam Pony gang back home didn't have a clue. As far as Sketchy, Herbal, and the others were concerned she was on holiday in LA to meet her long-lost mother and have a completely innocent family reunion along with some of her siblings.

"She did tell them I have brothers as well, didn't she?" Max asked.

"Yeah, but for some reason they didn't seem much interested in your brothers."

"Okay, tell Cindy to tell Herbal that he is a married man. I will personally kick Sketchy's ass once I get back."

Logan nodded, but went silent all of a sudden, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"What is it, Logan?"

"I just ... you just said when you get back. I was just wondering. Once this is all over, what are your plans?"

Max opened her mouth to answer, but then realized that she didn't have any idea what to say. Once it was all over ... then what? Once she no longer needed to run from Manticore she would ... do what? She hadn't spent much thought on that yet.

She certainly wanted to return to Seattle and all her friends. Logan especially, she admitted to herself. But during the last few days she had also come to appreciate the presence of her family, both old and new. She was quickly growing to like Faith and her strange circle of friends. And if she wasn't mistaken the other X-5 were also starting to like hanging out together instead of being on the run separately.

Neither Wesley nor Angel had said anything, but Max suspected that they hoped to recruit at least some of the X-5 for the Slayer cause. Faith had given her the skinny on their problem, how no new Slayers were being born and the ones present were getting older. She also suspected that they hadn't said anything yet because the last thing they wanted to do was pressure the poor kids into yet another war they had never asked for. Still, Max was sure that the question would come up sooner or later.

"I don't know, Logan," she finally admitted. "I honestly don't know."

There was a brief flash of disappointment in his eyes. It hurt Max to see it there, but she didn't know what to do in order to make it go away.

"We have to take down Manticore first," she told him. "Then and only then can I start thinking about the future, Logan. I need to get this over with first."

He nodded, understanding if not entirely ecstatic about it.

"Then let's make sure we take down Manticore fast, Max."

#

Zack groaned, wondering whether the universe had it in for him personally. His life had never been easy, but these past few days everything had gone south in a hurry. 

For ten years his siblings had done what he said when he said it. Except Max, of course, but she had always been special. Now, though, it seemed control was slipping away from him. The other X-5 still looked to him as their leader, but now seemed to regard Faith and Max as equal authorities with the other Slayers catching up quickly. 

For ten years they had been on the run, now they were stationary, all of them together, and planning to fight that which they had always fled from. Eleven of them, plus seven Slayers, plus one vampire, planning to take on hundreds of armed soldiers plus at least eighty or so X-5 soldiers, all of them with ten years more combat training than them.

He couldn't shake the feeling that all of this was a humongous mistake. And to top it all of this latest indignity had happened:

"Zack," Alison sighed contentedly, "I take back what I said earlier. No one needs to give you the talk."

Why oh why did he have to go into heat now of all times?

  
TO BE CONTINUED  



End file.
